Why i dont believe the unemployment figures

So as we are leadto believe there are currently 2.5 million people out of work in the UK. I'd like to argue that figure is much higher than that in reality and i'll tell you why i think that.

Alot of people who could be counted as unployed are currently in training schemes which mask the true figures and often the figures are out dated or collected wrongly.

capitalism of which we live under has a lot to answer to for this result in high unemployment in 2011.
From a ‘rational’ point of view capitalism is a crazy way of running the world. Even though unemployment is relatively low at the moment in Britain (although this will change as recession hits the economy), there are still vast tracts of mass unemployment. The reality is far bleaker than the official figures suggest. In the North of England, Wales and Scotland, the destruction of manufacturing means that jobs are hard to come by.

Even in the South, in the inner cities up to a third of young black people are unemployed. The real number of people looking for work or on government training schemes is probably closer to three million than to two and a half million. (And even in areas where unemployment is currently low, it has been replaced by a massive increase in part-time, temporary work.)

Every unemployed person ‘costs’ around £10,000 a year in benefits paid and taxes lost. The Cambridge Journal of Economics shows that one million jobs could be created for £17 billion. This means that, at current taxation levels, an extra £10 million could be raised or saved! Economists also calculate that each employed person annually contributes, on average, around £22,000 to the economy. Therefore, each unemployed person, given a real job, could produce £22,000 worth of production - potentially around £60 billion.

At the same time as we have unemployment, four million workers in Britain work an average of 48 hours a week. This is the lunacy of capitalism. By introducing a 35-hour week with no loss of pay - in other words, sharing out the work - it would be possible to dramatically reduce the number of unemployed whilst simultaneously improving the quality of life for working people.

If this were combined with a massive increase in public services it would be possible to eliminate unemployment. This would allow us to develop a vastly better public transport system, build public housing, and hire more teachers, nursery staff and health workers.

But for the capitalist class profit comes before anything else. So the development of new technology does not mean, as it could, a shorter week for all, but rather longer, backbreaking hours for some and unemployment for the rest.




So i do think figures of unemployment are far worse than the capitalist news sources would have you believe. A lot of down playing the situation is going on at the moment and i'm no fool i can tell that my fellow people around me are struggling. The youth of toay and the people leaving university today are leaving to a labour market where there is little if any prospect of finding lasting employment for themselves.

The longer people are out of work and on job seakers allowance the doll to many people this will be costing the country more and more in deficit and ultimatly will not help the country or the economy. But these are forgotton people. The tories expect the private sector to pick up the loss of jobs in the public sector as a result of public sector cuts i fail to see this happening as the private sector in many ways is struggling too.

So as i say lets look at the governments figures with more sceptism as i frankly feel they dont tell the full story and never have as the working class are often forgotton about.

As the old saying goes out of sight out of mind...