MSE News: Unemployment hits 17-year high: how to limit the damage

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Unemployment has topped 2.5 million and youth joblessness is at record levels but you can ease the pain ..."

Read the full story:
Unemployment hits 17-year high: how to limit the damage

Googlewhacker

as a % though of the population both legal and illegal I bet its not the higher than 17 years ago

Numpty_Monkey

I bet if you add all the unemployed people who are on the useless government sponsored "training schemes", doing work trails, (working for nothing)
and all the statistic manipulation that goes on
I bet it is higher

edinburgher

I bet if you add all the unemployed people who are on the useless government sponsored "training schemes", doing work trails, (working for nothing)
and all the statistic manipulation that goes on
I bet it is higher

I'm sure you're right - statistical manipulation is one of the common features of all governments it would seem.

Googlewhacker

so why manipulate it to include an increase then?

rinabean

Googlewhacker wrote: »

so why manipulate it to include an increase then?

I guess because this is actually a much smaller increase than the reality, so they don't look quite so terribly bad!

maskerade

Problem is that unless we have a radical social shift it isn't going to get better. Our economy is largely based on retail and services. We just recycle money, we don't really make that much anymore.

The increasing prevalence of national chains is also an issue. If you spend a pound in a local retailer selling local goods it gets reinvested in the community around you and generates a living for everyone. Spend it in Tesco - just for example - and only a fraction goes back into the community. The rest goes in profit share to their shareholders who will tend to mostly be banks and private equity firms. A lot of these won't even be UK based. So by shopping in a national chain store more money goes to the top 5% of earners and out of the country... Given the increasing dominance of chain stores I don't see what can be done to reverse this.