The lives of women in Britain are being devastated by rising unemployment, rising prices and the coalition's spending cuts.
Unemployment now stands at 2.67m and of this total 1.1m are women, the highest number for 23 years. Job losses are rising twice as fast for women as for men.
The TUC estimates that 80% of the 700,000 job losses planned in the public sector will be women. In local government 1 in 10 jobs are to be cut and 75% of local government employees are women.
Of course, the official unemployment figures disguise the real picture. Using the American measure of unemployment - which includes unemployed, discouraged, marginally attached and under-employed workers - would mean unemployment in the UK standing at 6.3 million.
An analysis by the TUC also shows that under-employment - people doing temporary or part-time jobs because they can't find permanent or full-time work - has risen to a record 1.9 million.
Last year the UK's major stores were closing shops at a rate of 20 a day, cutting one of the main private sector employment opportunities for women. Women are more likely to work several part-time jobs, and losing one of them leaves them facing debt and poverty.
It is estimated that 73% of the money raised by the Treasury by cutting or freezing tax credits and changing tax rules will be taken out of women's incomes. The cruel cuts in disability benefits contained in the Welfare Reform Bill, will hit women disproportionately in their role as carers. Many disabled women rely on Disabled Living Allowance to be able to go on looking after their families.
A growing number of women approaching debt charities for help have taken out payday loans to cover household bills, and then been unable to pay them back. These high interest loan companies target women with their ads on TV and in magazines.
Around 1.8 million households (almost 9% of the total) spend more than 25% of their income on unsecured debt repayments and an estimated 1.6 million (7.9%) spend more than half of their income on debt secured on their home - i.e. mortgages and bank loans.
More than 50,000 women declared themselves bankrupt in 2011 and 63,000 in 2010.
Over 100,000 UK families relied on food parcels last year, and you only need to look at what is happening in Greece to know that the worst is yet to come. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) projects that the poorest UK households will see a 3.5% slump in their incomes in 2012/13 and even steeper falls of a further 6.3% in 2013/14.
Equality for women is just another of the myths we are fed from birth. When society as a whole is based on generating profit and driven by the market, their unprofitable role as carers of children, the sick and the elderly is always undervalued.
Women have most to lose from the slump and most to gain from a democratic transformation to a society driven by co-operation and care for each other. Taking inspiration from the women of Egypt and Tunisia as their example, women in Britain can take the lead in bringing about fundamental change.
They are already in the forefront of the struggle against cuts and job losses. Without women members, the British trade union movement would no longer exist. They took strike action in their hundreds of thousands last year in defence of pensions, a fight their leaders have now abandoned.
By forming democratic People's Assemblies in every area, we can unite communities in actions that will lead to the creation of a political and economic democracy where women can finally become truly equal.
Penny Cole
For revolutionary solutions to create a sustainable, not-for-profit economy in place of global capital alongside a real democracy based on People’s Assemblies. Visit our web site at www.aworldtowin.net
Showing posts with label UK unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK unemployment. Show all posts
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The fate of Greece a warning to all of us
Greece has “reached the limits of the social and economic system”, according to its public order minister Christos Papoutsis, and its “people cannot take any more”. It’s a message that will reverberate around the whole of Europe this year.
As unemployment soars to new highs in Britain, especially among young people, the system has indeed reached its “limits”. To those charting the course of the rapidly deepening crisis, the Greek drama is just the full-dress rehearsal. A global slump of terrifying proportions is threatening, only held back by central banks making cheap credit available to stricken banks and the printing of money by state agencies.
Papoutsis is a hated figure inside Greece. He is a minister from Pasok, who amazingly still call themselves “socialist”, who joined with others on Sunday to impose yet more savage cuts in spending, reduce pensions and sack thousands of public sector workers. Yesterday, the Greek cabinet under Lucas Papademos, the unelected prime minster and Goldman Sachs advisor, met in the wake of the violent protests that accompanied the vote in parliament.
On Sunday, Papademos bullied the Parliament into agreeing the terms of the latest IMF, European Central Bank (ECB) and European Union bailout. He threatened the country with a much worse result if Greece were forced to leave the eurozone in the wake of a default.
Papademos is well-qualified to act as the voice of capitalist finance. Amongst his many posts, he was senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in the 1980s, and vice-president of the ECB from 2002 to 2010. His assault on democracy forced coalition parties to expel more than 40 MPs for failing to back the bill.
Clearly shaken by the riots and burning buildings in the centre of Athens, Papoutsis was begging for mercy. "The government is making superhuman efforts”, he said. “From now on, Europe has to take the responsibility", washing his hands of any further responsibility.
But his appeal fell on deaf ears. Eurozone finance ministers cancelled today’s meeting with Greece when it became clear that the Athens government had again failed to deliver on the latest round of assaults designed to consign its people back to and beyond the poverty of the 1930s. They want more cuts and an undertaking that whoever wins April’s general elections will implement the EU’s demands. Democracy? Forget it.
The day after the vote in Athens, credit ratings agency Moody’s went fishing for more and bigger victims. They put the UK, France and Austria on negative outlook. By raising the prospect that the three countries would lose their triple A ratings due to exposure to the eurozone debt crisis, Moody’s issued instructions to these governments: the pace of the assault on living standards must be accelerated and its scope broadened out to the rest of Europe’s population.
Every day, further evidence emerges of the unstoppable catastrophic implosion of the capitalist economy. In the last quarter of 2011, Greece’s GDP dropped by 7% compared with the same period last year, a steeper decline than the 5% recorded in the third quarter, according to preliminary data published by Elstat, the national statistics body. Greece’s economy has now shrunk in every quarter but one since mid-2008.
It’s not only Greece that has reached the limits of the social and economic system. It is now time to make a leap to something new. As with the Telaithrion Project in Greece, in every country people are experimenting with different ways of living and producing the necessities of life and a great deal can be learned from them. The Transition Initiative has gone global since its launch in 2007.
But the challenge is to go beyond alternatives. Whilst the current profit-seeking capitalist system exists it is obliged to drive up the rate of exploitation of what corporations see as theirs to take – human labour and the natural resources of the planet. The system must be dismantled and its components used to build anew. Let’s compost capitalism.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
As unemployment soars to new highs in Britain, especially among young people, the system has indeed reached its “limits”. To those charting the course of the rapidly deepening crisis, the Greek drama is just the full-dress rehearsal. A global slump of terrifying proportions is threatening, only held back by central banks making cheap credit available to stricken banks and the printing of money by state agencies.
Papoutsis is a hated figure inside Greece. He is a minister from Pasok, who amazingly still call themselves “socialist”, who joined with others on Sunday to impose yet more savage cuts in spending, reduce pensions and sack thousands of public sector workers. Yesterday, the Greek cabinet under Lucas Papademos, the unelected prime minster and Goldman Sachs advisor, met in the wake of the violent protests that accompanied the vote in parliament.
On Sunday, Papademos bullied the Parliament into agreeing the terms of the latest IMF, European Central Bank (ECB) and European Union bailout. He threatened the country with a much worse result if Greece were forced to leave the eurozone in the wake of a default.
Papademos is well-qualified to act as the voice of capitalist finance. Amongst his many posts, he was senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in the 1980s, and vice-president of the ECB from 2002 to 2010. His assault on democracy forced coalition parties to expel more than 40 MPs for failing to back the bill.
Clearly shaken by the riots and burning buildings in the centre of Athens, Papoutsis was begging for mercy. "The government is making superhuman efforts”, he said. “From now on, Europe has to take the responsibility", washing his hands of any further responsibility.
But his appeal fell on deaf ears. Eurozone finance ministers cancelled today’s meeting with Greece when it became clear that the Athens government had again failed to deliver on the latest round of assaults designed to consign its people back to and beyond the poverty of the 1930s. They want more cuts and an undertaking that whoever wins April’s general elections will implement the EU’s demands. Democracy? Forget it.
The day after the vote in Athens, credit ratings agency Moody’s went fishing for more and bigger victims. They put the UK, France and Austria on negative outlook. By raising the prospect that the three countries would lose their triple A ratings due to exposure to the eurozone debt crisis, Moody’s issued instructions to these governments: the pace of the assault on living standards must be accelerated and its scope broadened out to the rest of Europe’s population.
Every day, further evidence emerges of the unstoppable catastrophic implosion of the capitalist economy. In the last quarter of 2011, Greece’s GDP dropped by 7% compared with the same period last year, a steeper decline than the 5% recorded in the third quarter, according to preliminary data published by Elstat, the national statistics body. Greece’s economy has now shrunk in every quarter but one since mid-2008.
It’s not only Greece that has reached the limits of the social and economic system. It is now time to make a leap to something new. As with the Telaithrion Project in Greece, in every country people are experimenting with different ways of living and producing the necessities of life and a great deal can be learned from them. The Transition Initiative has gone global since its launch in 2007.
But the challenge is to go beyond alternatives. Whilst the current profit-seeking capitalist system exists it is obliged to drive up the rate of exploitation of what corporations see as theirs to take – human labour and the natural resources of the planet. The system must be dismantled and its components used to build anew. Let’s compost capitalism.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
'Clueless' as global crisis worsens
The World Bank is warning of a global downturn worse than that of 2008/09 which saw trade drop by 90% at it lowest point and production following suit. In a sharp about-face from the optimism of its June 2011 report, the Bank now says “the world economy has entered a dangerous period”.
It warns that countries do not have the “fiscal and monetary space” to stimulate the global economy or support the financial system to the same degree as they did in 2008/09. In other words, no rescue packages will be available this time round which is about as stark a message as it comes.
Following turmoil on the world’s financial markets in August, global trade volumes declined at an annualized pace of 8% during the three months ending October 2011, mainly reflecting a 17% annualized decline in European imports. On balance, the World Bank said global economic conditions were "fragile and there remains great uncertainty as to how markets will evolve over the medium term."
In an open admission that they, nor anyone else can do anything to prevent the worsening collapse, Andrew Burns, Manager of Global Macroeconomics and lead author of the report says “the importance of contingency planning cannot be stressed enough.”
The report admits: “An escalation of the crisis would spare no-one. Developed- and developing-country growth rates could fall by as much or more than in 2008/09.”
Underlining the interconnected self-feeding spiral of decline of the global capitalist economy, the Bank’s latest report adds: "The downturn in Europe and weaker growth in developing countries raises the risk that the two developments reinforce one another, resulting in an even weaker outcome." Failure to resolve high debts and deficits in Japan and the United States and slow growth in other high-income countries, could trigger sudden shocks, the report says.
On top of that, political tensions in the Middle East and North Africa could disrupt oil supplies and add another blow to global prospects. In a sign that billions of people in developing countries are to be abandoned to their fate, the Bank warns that they “should evaluate their vulnerabilities and prepare contingencies to deal with a downturn”.
Meanwhile, the crisis in Europe is deepening by the day, as evidenced by the latest unemployment figures in Britain. The number out of work rose to its highest level in more than 17 years in November. The number of people without a job rose by 118,000 in the three months to November to 2.685 million, the highest level since August 1994. The number of young people without a job jumped to 1.043 million in the three months to November, taking the unemployment rate in the age group of 16-24 year-olds to 22.3%.
Unemployment looks set to rise further. Banks and retailers have cut jobs in recent weeks and Britain's largest food group Premier Foods announced yesterday that it would slash 600 jobs in the face of weak consumer demand.
None of this is surprising, given the ConDem coalition’s spending cuts and the crisis within the eurozone economies. In a sign of desperation, the Bank of England is expected to launch another round of “quantitative easing” – aka printing of money – next month in a bid to inject some life into the economy.
The sense of a loss of control at state level is palpable, as the unwinding of the economic and financial crisis continues to outrun governments. As one minister told the London Evening Standard this week: “The thing to remember, the unsayable thing, is that no one, not governments, not bond markets, not ratings agencies, not the World Bank, the ECB or the IMF has a bloody clue what to do about any of it.”
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
It warns that countries do not have the “fiscal and monetary space” to stimulate the global economy or support the financial system to the same degree as they did in 2008/09. In other words, no rescue packages will be available this time round which is about as stark a message as it comes.
Following turmoil on the world’s financial markets in August, global trade volumes declined at an annualized pace of 8% during the three months ending October 2011, mainly reflecting a 17% annualized decline in European imports. On balance, the World Bank said global economic conditions were "fragile and there remains great uncertainty as to how markets will evolve over the medium term."
In an open admission that they, nor anyone else can do anything to prevent the worsening collapse, Andrew Burns, Manager of Global Macroeconomics and lead author of the report says “the importance of contingency planning cannot be stressed enough.”
The report admits: “An escalation of the crisis would spare no-one. Developed- and developing-country growth rates could fall by as much or more than in 2008/09.”
Underlining the interconnected self-feeding spiral of decline of the global capitalist economy, the Bank’s latest report adds: "The downturn in Europe and weaker growth in developing countries raises the risk that the two developments reinforce one another, resulting in an even weaker outcome." Failure to resolve high debts and deficits in Japan and the United States and slow growth in other high-income countries, could trigger sudden shocks, the report says.
On top of that, political tensions in the Middle East and North Africa could disrupt oil supplies and add another blow to global prospects. In a sign that billions of people in developing countries are to be abandoned to their fate, the Bank warns that they “should evaluate their vulnerabilities and prepare contingencies to deal with a downturn”.
Meanwhile, the crisis in Europe is deepening by the day, as evidenced by the latest unemployment figures in Britain. The number out of work rose to its highest level in more than 17 years in November. The number of people without a job rose by 118,000 in the three months to November to 2.685 million, the highest level since August 1994. The number of young people without a job jumped to 1.043 million in the three months to November, taking the unemployment rate in the age group of 16-24 year-olds to 22.3%.
Unemployment looks set to rise further. Banks and retailers have cut jobs in recent weeks and Britain's largest food group Premier Foods announced yesterday that it would slash 600 jobs in the face of weak consumer demand.
None of this is surprising, given the ConDem coalition’s spending cuts and the crisis within the eurozone economies. In a sign of desperation, the Bank of England is expected to launch another round of “quantitative easing” – aka printing of money – next month in a bid to inject some life into the economy.
The sense of a loss of control at state level is palpable, as the unwinding of the economic and financial crisis continues to outrun governments. As one minister told the London Evening Standard this week: “The thing to remember, the unsayable thing, is that no one, not governments, not bond markets, not ratings agencies, not the World Bank, the ECB or the IMF has a bloody clue what to do about any of it.”
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
End the rule of the 1% as economy implodes
The force of the global economic implosion, which has seen unemployment skyrocket to a 17-year high in the
The Slovakian parliament voted to reject a stronger European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) and hence a second rescue package for
They all warned of the systemic nature of the worsening crisis and the direst of consequences for the world capitalist economy should
The EFSF is the capitalist powers’ main weapon in dealing with the debt crisis that threatens the European common currency, the region's banks and the global financial system. But eurozone rules require all of the 17 member states to ratify the new plan and
Now the international lending agencies, responsible for holding the crumbling system together, have to stitch together a new interpretation of the rules allowing the package to be put into operation, whilst they wait to see if a more compliant government will emerge in
Just a few short weeks remain before the Greek government will run out of money and cease to be able to pay wages or pensions for the public sector employees who make up one fifth of the country’s workforce. But the price of the new, wholly inadequate deal would see further tax rises, jobs destroyed, wages cut and – to the banks’ horror – a write-down of the money they are owed by the Greek government by as much as 50%.
As those in the race to contain or deflect the impact of the deepening crisis struggle with its European expression, insolvency practitioners in the United States and elsewhere are gearing up for a busy time ahead.
Bankrupt book chain Borders, for instance, recently closed its doors after failing to find a buyer. Moody's credit rating agency says the number of troubled companies rose for the third month in a row in September, an ominous sign similar to the third quarter of 2007 when the economy slid into recession and the ensuing crash engulfed the world.
And in another blow for the New Green Dealers who are promoting an eco- friendly growth-oriented capitalist solution to climate change, recent failures included renewable energy companies Evergreen Solar and Solyndra. The latter collapsed in a politically-charged bankruptcy after taking a $535 million loan from the
This time around
A Reuters special report on
Be warned. Any and every attempt at shoring up the defences of the capitalist system will involve an unimaginable, intolerable assault on the lives of billions of people. Almost a million young people are on the dole in
Saturday’s global occupation of city and town squares should become the focus for shaping a new social, economic and democratic political system founded upon the satisfaction of human needs. The 1% cannot be allowed to continue their rule over the 99%.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
Friday, December 17, 2010
Community 'gang-masters' heading your way
Even as local authorities were digesting the destructive impact of the Cameron-Clegg Coalition’s savage assault on their funding, it was revealed that the government is hard at work preparing plans to deal with a sharp downturn in 2011.
These plans will have been given added urgency by the latest uunemployment figures, showing the total without jobs in the UK rose by 35,000 to 2.5 million in the three months to October – the first increase since the spring.
In a surprise for the many economists deluded by self-created dreams of recovery, the private sector failed to create enough jobs to offset those that are starting to be lost in the public sector as the cuts begin to bite.
The jobless rate rose to 7.9 per cent of the workforce, up from 7.7 per cent in the three months to September and taking it close to the 8 per cent peak seen in the first quarter. Unemployment among 16-24 year-olds rose by 28,000 to 943,000, a rate of 19.8 per cent, one in five, and close to the record set last year.
As the latest round of cuts begin to take effect, threatening a further 100,000 jobs in the next few months, research by homeless charity Shelter shows that almost a million households are already in arrears with their rent or mortgage, twice as many as a year ago.
According to Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive: “Every two minutes someone faces the nightmare of losing their home and this research paints a disturbing picture of sharply rising numbers of people who face a daily struggle just to keep a roof over their head.
“We know from the cases we see every day that just one single thing, like a bout of illness, rent increase or drop in income, is all that’s needed to push people into spiral of debt and arrears that can lead to the loss of their home. With tough times ahead and homelessness already on the rise, we’re extremely concerned that this could be the beginning of a surge in the numbers of people losing their homes next year.”
Publication of the Localism Bill provides a clearer view of the government’s direction as it cuts revenue for local authorities, abandons services like housing, education, libraries, social care, focuses on channeling declining tax revenues into restoring the profitability of the banking and finance sector.
Whilst community-run enterprises across the country are already filling some of the void left by Post Office and pub closures, the Bill suggests that this can be scaled up to take on libraries, schools and social care. But the reality is that surviving local services will increasingly be passed into the control of for-profit corporations, be staffed by unpaid volunteers or fall apart altogether.
What the Coalition is really envisaging was revealed in the startling results of a consultation with business leaders participating in the Prince of Wales Business in the Community charity. As well as urging the government to eliminate the checks that prevent unsuitable people volunteering, they asked the government to help them promote the idea of “brokers” on the ground in communities to establish connections between companies and voluntary organisations.
Pretty soon, if the Coalition’s friends and sponsors have their way, those in need will have to depend on profitable paid-for services like the already privatised home care. They’ll be staffed by low-paid workers managed by well-paid “brokers” or “connectors” employed by Sainsbury’s, Tesco or even the global financial conglomerate UBS.
It’ll be just a “community” version of the gang masters who organise people-trafficked cheap labour to pick and pack vegetables, but dressed up in the comforting Big Society newspeak.
The Localism Bill expects communities to pick up the pieces as the Coalition destroys the last vestiges of the welfare state to protect the capitalist economy. Expect no opposition from local councillors, especially those in Ed Miliband's party. They plan to make the cuts as instructed.
Communities should seize the initiative and form networks of Peoples’ Assemblies which can take over the resources owned by shareholders and run for profit and turn them into not-for-profit enterprises that will serve local people’s needs. The alternative is a bleak wasteland of broken services and mass unemployment.
Gerry Gold
Economic editor
These plans will have been given added urgency by the latest uunemployment figures, showing the total without jobs in the UK rose by 35,000 to 2.5 million in the three months to October – the first increase since the spring.
In a surprise for the many economists deluded by self-created dreams of recovery, the private sector failed to create enough jobs to offset those that are starting to be lost in the public sector as the cuts begin to bite.
The jobless rate rose to 7.9 per cent of the workforce, up from 7.7 per cent in the three months to September and taking it close to the 8 per cent peak seen in the first quarter. Unemployment among 16-24 year-olds rose by 28,000 to 943,000, a rate of 19.8 per cent, one in five, and close to the record set last year.
As the latest round of cuts begin to take effect, threatening a further 100,000 jobs in the next few months, research by homeless charity Shelter shows that almost a million households are already in arrears with their rent or mortgage, twice as many as a year ago.
According to Campbell Robb, Shelter’s chief executive: “Every two minutes someone faces the nightmare of losing their home and this research paints a disturbing picture of sharply rising numbers of people who face a daily struggle just to keep a roof over their head.
“We know from the cases we see every day that just one single thing, like a bout of illness, rent increase or drop in income, is all that’s needed to push people into spiral of debt and arrears that can lead to the loss of their home. With tough times ahead and homelessness already on the rise, we’re extremely concerned that this could be the beginning of a surge in the numbers of people losing their homes next year.”
Publication of the Localism Bill provides a clearer view of the government’s direction as it cuts revenue for local authorities, abandons services like housing, education, libraries, social care, focuses on channeling declining tax revenues into restoring the profitability of the banking and finance sector.
Whilst community-run enterprises across the country are already filling some of the void left by Post Office and pub closures, the Bill suggests that this can be scaled up to take on libraries, schools and social care. But the reality is that surviving local services will increasingly be passed into the control of for-profit corporations, be staffed by unpaid volunteers or fall apart altogether.
What the Coalition is really envisaging was revealed in the startling results of a consultation with business leaders participating in the Prince of Wales Business in the Community charity. As well as urging the government to eliminate the checks that prevent unsuitable people volunteering, they asked the government to help them promote the idea of “brokers” on the ground in communities to establish connections between companies and voluntary organisations.
Pretty soon, if the Coalition’s friends and sponsors have their way, those in need will have to depend on profitable paid-for services like the already privatised home care. They’ll be staffed by low-paid workers managed by well-paid “brokers” or “connectors” employed by Sainsbury’s, Tesco or even the global financial conglomerate UBS.
It’ll be just a “community” version of the gang masters who organise people-trafficked cheap labour to pick and pack vegetables, but dressed up in the comforting Big Society newspeak.
The Localism Bill expects communities to pick up the pieces as the Coalition destroys the last vestiges of the welfare state to protect the capitalist economy. Expect no opposition from local councillors, especially those in Ed Miliband's party. They plan to make the cuts as instructed.
Communities should seize the initiative and form networks of Peoples’ Assemblies which can take over the resources owned by shareholders and run for profit and turn them into not-for-profit enterprises that will serve local people’s needs. The alternative is a bleak wasteland of broken services and mass unemployment.
Gerry Gold
Economic editor
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