Staggering job losses show need to extend furlough
Responding to ONS figures showing that the economy shed 695,000 jobs between March and August this year, Liberal Democrat Economy Spokesperson Christine Jardine said:
These staggering job losses are yet more evidence of why the Chancellor should be extending the furlough scheme, which has so far protected 10 million jobs, until the middle of next year.
People have a right to expect that their Government will stand by them in exactly the way that Rishi Sunak promised when he said he would “do whatever it takes.
The Liberal Democrats’ are clear that the Government must extend the furlough scheme until the jobs market is ready to bounce back.
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4 Comments
This needs a statement of cost.
“the Government must extend the furlough scheme until the jobs market is ready to bounce back.”
The world has changed and so should the furlough scheme.
An underlying assumption is that the world hasn’t changed and that people are effectively taking sabbaticals. Unfortunately it has changed; many of those jobs will no longer be required. So what is needed is to encourage employers and individuals to reskill and adapt to create the new jobs that will help the job market to bounce back. Which means some of the constraints on the current furloough scheme need to be adjusted so that whilst people can’t be at work doing their normal job, they can be doing training, skills development and even setting up businesses wholly separate the employer who is effectively paying their furlough.
I previously criticised the Lib Dems for being far too fiscally conservative. The neoliberalism of the last election manifesto which called for the running of budget surpluses, albeit justified as being on the current account, was nonsense economics.
This thinking was also evident in putting a penny on income tax for this and another penny for that. More nonsense.
BUT please don’t go from one extreme to the other! The Govt deficits spent into the economy are also everyone else’s surpluses. That’s fine if we just save them or use them to pay down private debt but there is a danger of creating too much inflation if those surpluses are released in a spending splurge later on.
Today, Wednesday, is PMQ and Ed D. has spotted that PM Boris Johnson does not know or care about disability. The World at One on Radio 4 knows, and seems to care, arguing that face masks are unhelpful to people who need to communicate by lip-reading. They accompanied one affected person into a coffee shop and a tube station. Perspex masks are still barriers.
Johnson 0 Davey 10.
Unfortunately this specialism might mean that the ONE thing from the Alderdice Review is not being followed up with enough focus to qualify as a USP, which is still topical, for instance please see what is happening about a T-shirt worn by our Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=lewis+hamilton&form=IARRTH&ufn=Lewis+Hamilton&stid=afd8d17d-2960-d4d6-3ee3-cbb7ad7d515e&cbn=EntityAnswer&cbi=0&first=1&scenario=ImageBasicHover