Now that there is no longer any political capital to be made out of the unemployment figures by the parties (because they are all in Government somewhere), we are hearing less and less on the state of Welsh unemployment from our politicians.
Unemployment in Wales currently stands at 131,000 that’s 9.1%, the third highest rate in the UK behind the North East of England and London and higher than the UK average rate of 7.8%.
There will be some relief from politicians and business that Welsh unemployment is unchanged for the three months from March to May, but it will be temporary relief with the large scale job losses expected as a result of the cuts yet to filter through due to Wales high dependence of the public sector and weak growth and job creation in the Welsh private sector.
However despite the overall drop in UK unemployment there are other worrying trends in today’s figures for example the number of people out of work for more than a year reached a 13-year high of 787,000 in the UK after a 61,000 rise in the three months from m March to May, the longer people are out of work the harder it is to get back into the workforce.
Plus the rise in part time workers in the UK economy has reached 27%, that more than a quarter of ht workforce and it’s fair to bet that a lot of those people are being paid minim wage and over qualified for the jobs they are doing and not adding value to the economy. If this is going to be a future trend, it would be useful to have figures for Wales, maybe something the politicians should be looking at.
With many commentators saying we are in a ‘jobless recovery’ its not going to help the 131,000 people in Wales get back into the workplace, so what are the Government’s in Westminster and Cardiff doing to create those sustainable long term job opportunities they always talk about or are they just going to keep blaming each other for the mess were in in the coming months and years.Any source
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