Employment

Conservative & Labour

Liberal Democrats
Under the Conservatives 'real' unemployment stood at an estimated four million and was costing the country over £20 billion a year in benefit payments and foregone taxes.

Training budgets were cut by 40% between 1988 and 1995, while the Conservatives also fiddled the unemployment statistics on more than one occasion, to hide the true level of unemployment.

Labour have promised full employment but have no policies and funding plans to achieve this idle boast.

 Liberal Democrats would boost employment. We would:
  • Improve the economic incentives for employment - reducing employment taxes.
  • Introduce a new 'Early Start' programme to be piloted in areas of high unemployment. Job Centres will assess new claimants as to whether unemployment is likely to prove temporary or permanent, and whether relearning skills is necessary.
  • Ten areas need to be designated unemployment blackspots as 'Re-employment Priority Zones'.
  • Introduce a Benefits Transfer Programme, enabling the long term unemployed to have their benefits paid as a voucher to an employer, who would be required to train the new employee in return.
  • Establish Citizens Service, a volunteer scheme in which young unemployed people, could do one or two years' community work.
  • Entitle everybody to a period of training, allow all 16-19 year olds to be trained two days a week and encourage private firms to invest in their skills.
  • Take the lowest paid out of the tax net altogether, removing some of the disincentive to work.
  • Invest in infrastructure, research and development.
  • Set up Regional Development Agencies to help local businesses at a local level.
  • Demand a tightening up of advertising standards to prevent age discrimination, especially for people over the age of forty.

 

Facts & Figures.

  • One in twenty employees earn less than £2.50 an hour..
  • One in four employees earn less than £4 an hour, half of those work part-time. The majority are employed by small companies, who employ less than one hundred people.

Questions & Answers.

Q.
Before the last General Election the Conservatives managed to reduce unemployment by over a million?.
A.
Unemployment fluctuated wildly since 1979, with unemployment reaching over three million during the height of the last recession.The number of jobs available fell by over one and a half million between 1990 and 1995. Any employment growth has been mostly in lower paid part time or casual work.

Q.
A minimum hourly rate would cost jobs?.
A.
The Liberal Democrats plan is for a regional minimum wage to prevent exploitation, set at more realistic levels than Labour's. Labour's national wage would apply London levels in Liverpool dispute the cost of living in those two areas being different - now that would cost jobs.

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