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Jobless stats hide workers' real problems

There is far less to the new unemployment figures than meets the eye

Official unemployment figures give David Cameron the opportunity to bray in his classical Flashman-style bullying manner at Ed Miliband in Parliament.

But he knows that there is far less to these figures than meets the eye.

The idea that 99,000 jobseekers have removed themselves from the jobless roll in the past month because they have found full-time employment is fanciful.

The fall in the official jobless total is due to a variety of factors, only one of which is linked to the good tidings of an unemployed person finding a decent job.

Everyone who signs up to work experience or a "training" course, no matter how threadbare, is regarded as in employment.

The same goes for people pressed to accept part-time work or zero-hours contracts even though they would far prefer full-time employment.

Business Secretary Vince Cable, whose apologists project him as the human face of the conservative coalition, has decided to hold a 12-week consultation into zero-hours contracts.

However, he opposes banning them because they offer "welcome flexibility" for some workers.

Cabinet ministers, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute of Directors are as one in pronouncing zero-hours contracts beneficial to workers but, when working people themselves are consulted, it's a different story.

The 5.5 million people suffering this system in the hospitality industry, call centres, care homes, retail, fast food, charities and cinemas identify problems associated with it.

Inability to plan a household budget, punitive rent agreements, constant debt, no access to credit and stress brought on by inadequate hours all affect zero-hours contract workers.

Even most "real" new jobs offer little better than the official minimum wage.

Compare the newly created low-paid jobs in areas such as retail, fast food and hotels with the loss this week alone of 250 full-time jobs and 365 agency posts at Sharp's solar panel plant in Wrexham, followed by another 230 jobs at First Milk's cheese factory in the same town.

These twin setbacks in a single north Welsh town are a devastating blow to the local economy, but they also form part of a pattern of insidious deindustrialisation throughout Britain as the government prioritises the interests of the City financial sector over all other areas.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles made clear in Parliament that local authorities in England will face a 2.9 per cent cut in spending for 2014-15.

Given that authorities have their hands tied over a government-imposed council tax freeze beyond the life of this Parliament, this further resources reduction can only herald more job cuts in essential services.

Pickles talks airily about councils cutting out waste, but he knows that it will be discretionary spending on local charities, youth facilities and pensioners' clubs that will face the axe.

Ed Miliband is right to point out that workers' average wages are down £364 on a year ago and over £1,500 lower than at the general election, but he misses an open goal by failing to follow up this point.

There is no shortage of wealth in Britain.

Big business is sitting on cash reserves of at least £440 billion and the gap between rich and poor is stretching, yet Labour remains wedded to an austerity-lite agenda.

Miliband should respond in kind to the Con-Dem government's anti-working people class war and propose a transfer of wealth from the rich and powerful through taxation and increased public ownership.

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