Forecast suggests 600,000 public sector jobs to go

Page last updated at 13:07 GMT, Wednesday, 30 June 2010 14:07 UK

BBC News

 

Some 600,000 jobs are expected to be lost in the public sector over the next five years, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said.

 

Leaked Treasury documents had suggested last week's Budget could increase unemployment by up to 1.3 million.

 

In the Commons, Labour's acting leader Harriet Harman said the Budget would push many people into "abject misery".

 

But Prime Minister David Cameron said unemployment was forecast to fall "every year under this government".

 

Newspaper figures

 

At prime minister's questions, Ms Harman said: "We were very concerned this morning to read reports that, as a result of your Budget, 1.3 million jobs will be lost.

 

"Can you confirm this was an estimate produced by Treasury officials?"

 

Mr Cameron said the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had produced full tables for employment in the public and private sectors - "something that never happened under a Labour government."

 

"What's interesting from the tables is that you can see the effect of Labour's policy before the Budget and the effect of our policy after the Budget"

 

Earlier, the Guardian said leaked Treasury figures predicted that up to 120,000 public sector jobs and 140,000 private sector jobs could disappear annually for the next five years.

 

The newspaper said the figures came from a slide which was part of a Treasury presentation on the Budget.

 

It claims the Chancellor would have seen the presentation before delivering his Budget last week.

 

A Treasury spokesman said on Tuesday night that the department could not immediately confirm or deny whether the slide was genuine.

 

'Wishful thinking'

 

Mr Osborne announced real terms cuts across all government departments of 25% over four years - except health and foreign aid which are ring-fenced.

 

He did not say how many public sector jobs were expected to go - but the government has previously insisted that the bulk will come from not filling vacant posts, rather than by making redundancies.

 

At the same time, the government is predicting that 2.5 million jobs will be created as a result of private sector growth by 2015.

 

But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said that was "absurd", given the reduction in the availability of government contracts and the likely fall in public spending as a result of the austerity measures.

 

"This is not so much wishful thinking as a complete refusal to engage with reality," said Mr Barber.

 

"Much more likely are dole queues comparable to the 1980s, a new deep north-south divide and widespread poverty as the Budget's benefit cuts start to bite."

 

In response to the Guardian story, the Treasury cited a report by the independent OBR, set up by Mr Osborne, which predicts that unemployment will peak this year at 8.1% and then fall in each of the next four years to reach 6.1% in 2015.

 

But shadow chancellor Alistair Darling said that "far from being open and honest", the Chancellor had "failed to tell the country there would be very substantial job losses as a result of his Budget".

 

"The Tories did not have to take these measures. They chose to take them," Mr Darling said.

 

"They are not only a real risk to the recovery but hundreds of thousands of people will pay the price for the poor judgment of the Conservatives, fully supported by the Liberal Democrats."

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So, here we have it folks, the truth about what's going to happen to jobs in this country - another TORY jobs bloodbath (this time with the complicity of the Fib Dems, sh"t at least you always knew where you stood with Thatcher, you KNEW she hated the working classes....), millions on the dole, people on the scrapheap, AGAIN, just like in the 1980s when they destroyed manufacturing, mining, etc..... Now it's the turn of the Public Sector, and funnily enough, guess which sector has the most militant unions this time round......

 

Oh, but dont worry, apparently the Private sector's gonna come to the rescue of the jobless... Err, how..? 700,000 jobs are going from that sector too...

 

ConDemned to Cuts and the Dole.... As John Lydon once said...

 

"There's no future in England's Dreaming"

'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'

 

 

 

 

All those that voted Lib Dem do now.

 

 

Personally I find the most worrying thing about that report is that none of it really surprises me

'Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?'

 

All those that voted Lib Dem do now.

Personally I find the most worrying thing about that report is that none of it really surprises me

 

Yep, that's another choice quote which is relevant... But I went with the "No Future", as that is particularly apt, let's face it... There is NO FUTURE for this country, we are fukked, at least for a whole generation, if not longer...

 

It doesn't surprise me at all either, I just knew that as soon as that budget was announced hundreds of thousands were gonna lose their jobs sooner or later, the rate of 120-150,000 jobs PER YEAR for the next five years, plus another similar amount in the private sector is just pretty staggering however.... Especially given the bare-faced lie told last week that the private sector is going to grow sufficiently to cushion the blows.... All this nonsense talk of "oh, it'll just be natural wasteage and cuts in waste, cuts in 'non-jobs... blah, blah, blah...", what tosh... The sheer scale of this, it's pretty obvious to me that tens of thousands (at least) of front-line jobs in Policing, Teaching, the Emergency Services and Nursing are gonna be going, NOT just "un-necessary" Admin or Management roles or nonsense jobs that Nu Labor created, which is what we were led to believe during the election.... Not that anyone who didn't vote Tory believed that (and over 60% of us DIDN'T VOTE TORY, DIDN'T VOTE FOR TORY CUTS TO FRONTLINE PUBLIC SERVICES.....)

 

I think we could very probably see the return of the "North/South" divide tbh....

 

I'm with RMT Union Leader Bob Crow, now is the time for ALL working men and women, whether from Public or Private Sectors, to come together and smash this fukkin' "Coalition"..... <_<

Wait so unemployment is bad enough already in this country, they understand that its expected to fall even more, so instead of helping the situation, they help the loss of jobs? or did i misunderstand this?

 

Lib Dem got my first ever vote. Doubt they will get another from me again.

This whole "Natural Wasteage" thing is just crap... I'm already hearing about Police recruits leaving training from Hendon, etc, not being able to actually find a Policing job because of this "natural wasteage" where when people retire or leave they dont fill the vacant post... So, what's this then, we just train young recruits to be Police Officers and then say "sorry guys, no jobs"... Great... Because as we all know, there's absolutely no problems at all with crime in the UK..... And I imagine we'll be seeing the same thing in Nursing, Teaching, etc, where people leaving Nursing Colleges and Teacher Training wont be able to find any work because of "natural wasteage"... Because of course, we dont NEED nurses or teachers do we...? Naaaaaaah....

600,000 jobs - that's a false economy because these jobs should never have been created in the first place.

600,000 jobs - that's a false economy because these jobs should never have been created in the first place.

 

And if it wasn't for Thatcher destroying British industry, those jobs wouldn't've NEEDED to have been created... we'd also be far better off now as we'd actually have something to export to fuel economic growth (which, again, the Coalition is nonsensically relying on for their plsns to work).

600,000 jobs - that's a false economy because these jobs should never have been created in the first place.

 

Riiiiiiighhhht, so you want less coppers, teachers and nurses then...? Moron.... -_-

 

And I notice you've not even bothered to address the "minor" detail that this budget will lead to 700,000 jobs being lost in the Private Sector.... Which kind of rubbishes Cameron's assumptions that the Private Sector can make up for Public Sector cuts.....

And if it wasn't for Thatcher destroying British industry, those jobs wouldn't've NEEDED to have been created... we'd also be far better off now as we'd actually have something to export to fuel economic growth (which, again, the Coalition is nonsensically relying on for their plsns to work).

 

Exactly, like the Private Sector is gonna be able to absorb the planned 40% cuts to the Public Sector, when THEY are already pretty fukked.....

 

These are not Liberal Democrat policies and people would do well to remember that they are, at the very least, keeping a hand on the leash of the Tory pitbull here. If you, as I did and do, voted Liberal Democrat in the election then you wanted them to govern outright - never going to happen under this system. I'd take the current setup over the Tories governing outright. They'd have simply forced another election in October where their minority would proabably have changed to a majority. This way there is some restraint, some good policies are being pushed through albeit as softeners to Tory-derived schemes but there has to be give and take. Would the Lib Dems have done the same if they were solely in office? Of course they f***ing wouldn't.

 

Do not pass up your chance to help change the electoral system - AV is just a first step. Things can and do change.

These are not Liberal Democrat policies and people would do well to remember that they are, at the very least, keeping a hand on the leash of the Tory pitbull here. If you, as I did and do, voted Liberal Democrat in the election then you wanted them to govern outright - never going to happen under this system. I'd take the current setup over the Tories governing outright. They'd have simply forced another election in October where their minority would proabably have changed to a majority. This way there is some restraint, some good policies are being pushed through albeit as softeners to Tory-derived schemes but there has to be give and take. Would the Lib Dems have done the same if they were solely in office? Of course they f***ing wouldn't.

 

Do not pass up your chance to help change the electoral system - AV is just a first step. Things can and do change.

 

These "changes" will come too late for the millions the Tory scum will put on the scrapheap though Rich.... Seems to me like the Fib Dems are doing all the giving and the Tories all the taking when it comes to the most important stuff... Scrapping Trident should've been a no-brainer, we cant afford it, we're allegedly skint FFS.... And I would say getting our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and basically telling Obama to "stuff it" (especially over the utter shameful hypocrisy he's shown over BP, while ignoring the facts that America are the worst polluters on the planet, and that Shell and Exxon are doing far worse in the Niger Delta, and his inflammatory "anti-British" oratory, well; FUKK YOU AMERICA if that's how you feel, let's see how you manage without our logistics and support in the war on terror, you ungrateful c/unts....) would save us all a few billion quid as well. The recent Anti-UK bile coming out of Washington should have provided the perfect "get out" for Cameron to tell the Yank to sod off and pulled our troops out WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT, just like the Spanish did when they got rid of Aznar, but of course Cameron lacks the spine of the Spanish President, and the French, the Canadians, etc, etc, etc.....

 

The Fib Dems are pishing on us and telling us it's raining, they've been bought and sold for Tory Gold, to paraphrase from an old Scottish saying... I voted for them, and betrayed?? You flaming bet I feel betrayed, I didn't vote for this Thatcherite bullsh"t, and neither did over 60% of the country, who voted for parties OTHER than Tory....

 

These are not Liberal Democrat policies and people would do well to remember that they are, at the very least, keeping a hand on the leash of the Tory pitbull here. If you, as I did and do, voted Liberal Democrat in the election then you wanted them to govern outright - never going to happen under this system. I'd take the current setup over the Tories governing outright. They'd have simply forced another election in October where their minority would proabably have changed to a majority. This way there is some restraint, some good policies are being pushed through albeit as softeners to Tory-derived schemes but there has to be give and take. Would the Lib Dems have done the same if they were solely in office? Of course they f***ing wouldn't.

 

Do not pass up your chance to help change the electoral system - AV is just a first step. Things can and do change.

 

Sorry, but I don't see how the situation could possibly be worse if it was just the Tories governing on their own. This government is, by their own admission, introducing cuts which are more severe than Thatcher's. Like Harriet Harman said, the Lib Dems are merely the Tories' figleaf. The ONLY concessions they've got out of them is the gimmicky rise in personal tax allowance to £7k (which will have limited real effects, especially when set against the other tax rises) and the AV referendum - and, ironically, by desperately scrambling for some kind of voting reform in the Coalition agreement, the Lib Dems have actually ended the need for any kind of voting reform as they're unlikely to get a significant number of votes ever again anyway. :lol:

From the Guardian's Jackie Ashley:

 

 

These cuts won't only hit the scroungers. We'll all suffer

Millions believe Britain is being held back by single mothers or immigrants. But the pain will be felt by 'us', not just 'them'

 

 

Forty per cent cuts? Bigger than any from any modern government anywhere? Can they be serious? Well, no. They cannot. The "story" leaked to all newspapers yesterday about breathtakingly deep reductions in departmental budgets was a piece of shameless spin. It was a Treasury exercise to make a point – imagine how bad it could be – before settling on a lower figure. The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, admitted as much yesterday, when he said that he didn't expect any departments to see a 40% cut.

 

Strange days. The government remains popular, suspended in a cloud of fuzzy optimism. If the coalition had colours, blue-on-gold presumably, they would still be fluttering from white vans across the country. "Go, George," shout the blokes in the pub at the screen, even as Osborne warns of sharper and deeper cuts. The grimmer the language, the more the people like it, or so the opinion polls imply.

 

So what's going on? Here's my theory. David Cameron, Nick Clegg and friends have tapped into some strain of sadism in the national psyche that enjoys talking about pain, as long as it's someone else's. The fuzzy optimism is the assumption that other people will now take the hit, some other group, who somehow deserve what's coming to them.

 

It is the logical consequence of a style of national debate and newspaper rhetoric that has been with us for a decade or more. We have been taught that the country is full of villains, holding us back – immigrants who are both lazy scroungers yet also mysteriously take all the jobs; "bloated bureaucrats"; wicked politicians; bankers; "Whitehall"; "elf'n'safety Nazis"; single mothers; yobs; idle cops taking sickies.

 

For years we have been living in a lather of outrage, whipped up day after day about somebody, or some group. So when the government says it's time for the party to stop, and for really painful cuts, millions of voters punch the air. Yes, "they" are getting what's coming to them at last. Then "we" can all relax and get on with our lives, more successfully than before. Here, I would suggest, is the real source of the optimism.

 

For there is no "they", no "we". Deep cuts in welfare will hit millions of people who read the papers and never connect "scroungers" with themselves or their families. People with aching backs or very poor eyesight will be sent again to queue in doctors' surgeries for reassessment, feeling angry and surprised. Cuts in policing will slow investigations and increase crime – at the expense of the very people protesting about police bureaucracy. Middle-income people will find their pensions and pots of money shrinking. Small businesses, whose bosses have got by with public sector contracts, considering themselves sturdily independent, will find the work drying up and the balance sheet bleeding red.

 

Higher taxes will hit the families who thought they'd only be paid by rich so-and-sos in the Home Counties. Jobs will be lost by administrators working long hours doing things they'd always thought were useful. Engineers, electricians and maintenance workers, applauding a "crackdown" on someone else, will find they lose out when the railway extension is shelved or the school building cancelled. Commuters will notice the coffee shop staffed by migrant labour going, the roads getting worse, and the fares shooting up.

 

There is no easy free-loading "them" in all this; there is only "us". Intelligent ministers understand it. They know that the optimism will vanish, as surely as the England flags and bunting did. As the hard reality kicks in, probably through the winter, the mood will change radically. If Fabio Capello can go from national hero to villain in an afternoon or two, how much more so can Osborne, Cameron and the rest.

 

That is why they are hyping the scale of the cuts now, so that when 20% comes off some budgets later, it can be presented as a relief. But it is the kind of figure-fiddling New Labour got into years back, with such disastrous consequences for their reputation. In the end it won't work, because people will be experiencing the pain in their actual lives, not merely reading about it in the papers. Sadism is one thing, masochism another.

 

The government would be better off asking hard questions about its strategy. Is this much pain this soon quite so clever? What if we are tipped into a double-dip recession? Even if it is able to blame Labour for the first "V", the coalition will be blamed for the second. Is there a Plan B, any exit strategy or reverse gear if things radically worsen? Those are the questions ministers need to answer. We need less lip-smacking about cuts and more sober caution.

 

There are other questions too. If everyone is in this together, why are the NHS budget, and specific promises such as to keep free travel passes for richer pensioners, beyond debate? The Tories have torn up their promises on the voting system, inheritance tax and prisons; the Lib Dems have torn up their economic strategy and views on VAT – why should either party stop there? If the cuts are needed so badly, what about Trident? What about looking again at the top rate of income tax? Why has so much been closed down?

 

 

The answer is, of course, that the government is trying to appease too many audiences. The Tory right is baring its teeth over law and order and the constitution. Liberal Democrats such as Simon Hughes, Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy are watching welfare cuts with silent menace. The Conservatives have an age-old terror of being seen as the destroyers of the NHS. So a ringfence there, while the rest of the cuts are driven by Tory ideology as much as by need (yes, a bit of both; some cuts are needed).

 

This winter, we will have a new Labour leader, and a change in the national mood. I hope we get a truly serious critique of the government's planned cuts – without spite or childish name-calling, but one that asks whether it is not going too fast, too far, and explains the alternatives. The time is ripe for a new left-of-centre economics, which acknowledges the failures of Labour in office, relearns Keynesian principles for our time, and comes up with harder, clearer proposals for a more diversified and stronger economy.

 

England did not lose so badly on the football pitch because of a villainous manager, but because of ill-discipline, self-delusion and too much easy money sloshing around too few players. It's a lesson for Britain, and the government. Its flags too will be packed away.

 

 

And now the Tories have confirmed a school-building project has been cancelled, which means people in the PRIVATE SECTOR will lose jobs. What this idiot government doesn't realise is that MANY small businesses rely on public-sector contracts to stay afloat... you pull public sector funding, it ripples into the private sector too.

Sorry, but I don't see how the situation could possibly be worse if it was just the Tories governing on their own. This government is, by their own admission, introducing cuts which are more severe than Thatcher's. Like Harriet Harman said, the Lib Dems are merely the Tories' figleaf. The ONLY concessions they've got out of them is the gimmicky rise in personal tax allowance to £7k (which will have limited real effects, especially when set against the other tax rises) and the AV referendum - and, ironically, by desperately scrambling for some kind of voting reform in the Coalition agreement, the Lib Dems have actually ended the need for any kind of voting reform as they're unlikely to get a significant number of votes ever again anyway. :lol:

 

The Lib Dem vote share increased by a measly 0.9% in the last election - so much for this apparent group of first time Lib Dem voters who are now disenchanted and off back to Labour. Without electorial reform, their significant steady vote (consistently between one fifth and one quarter of the country) will never be transformed into seats. How else do you expect the minor party of a coalition to act anyway? There has to be give and take and the proportion of each is sadly dictated by the party with the most clout. You've also conveniently forgotten the significant rise in CGT by the way and that the Lib Dems are pushing to have the income tax threshold lifted to 10k. These are not the policies of a Tory government.

 

Harman can say what she likes, Labour were unwilling to govern with an adopted fig leaf or not and the Lib Dems would have been foolish not to try their hand at governing for the good within a nefarious cabinet for reasons I've already outlined.

The Lib Dem vote share increased by a measly 0.9% in the last election - so much for this apparent group of first time Lib Dem voters who are now disenchanted and off back to Labour. Without electorial reform, their significant steady vote (consistently between one fifth and one quarter of the country) will never be transformed into seats. How else do you expect the minor party of a coalition to act anyway? There has to be give and take and the proportion of each is sadly dictated by the party with the most clout. You've also conveniently forgotten the significant rise in CGT by the way and that the Lib Dems are pushing to have the income tax threshold lifted to 10k. These are not the policies of a Tory government.

 

Harman can say what she likes, Labour were unwilling to govern with an adopted fig leaf or not and the Lib Dems would have been foolish not to try their hand at governing for the good within a nefarious cabinet for reasons I've already outlined.

 

The Lib Dem vote may have only increased marginally in terms of percentage, but you forget that turnout was up significantly, meaning the Lib Dems gained a LOT of new votes in real terms - due, imo, to many more young people showing up and voting for them than previously - and they're unlikely to vote for them again after the Lib Dems become complicit in raising tuition fees and the drying up of jobs for graduates. Plus there's already reports that the core base of the party are growing disillusioned. They're already down to 15% in opinion polls. Seriously, why would anyone vote for them at the next election when, in the eyes of the public, their policies will be EXACTLY the same as the Tories? People would simply vote Tory if they liked what the government had done, or Labour or a minority party if they didn't like what they'd done. What unique policies would the Lib Dems have left to trumpet? The amnesty for illegal immigrants? Not exactly an election-winning pledge.

 

The two concessions you mentioned that supposedly make the Coalition worthwhile aren't real concessions. The 10% rise in CGT is NOT significant, and is 12-22% below what we were promised. And raising the tax threshold to £10k is a deeply regressive policy, NOT progressive - it benefits ALL working people (not just those on the lowest wages) and it punishes those on benefits, as it leaves them proportionally further behind the rest of society. Even by Vince Cable's own admission, the middle-class would benefit the most from such a policy - even UKIP agree with it ffs!

 

As someone who admittedly voted Labour in the general election, but has always admired the Lib Dems and voted for them in European/local elections in the last couple of years, I would've expected them to pull out of the Coalition when the scale of the Tories' planned cuts became clear. In reality, if faced with such a threat, the Tories would probably have delayed most of their cuts for a year out of fear of a new election. Like it or not, the Lib Dems have enabled the Tories to pursue this Thatcherite agenda.

Some good news on the jobs front. Take That tribute bands will now be auditioning for a fifth person who can't sing. :lol:

 

Norma

Edited July 15, 201015 yr by Norma_Snockers