Unite: Young people bearing brunt of Osborne's cruelty

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 11:19 AM

Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary, comments on unemployment statistics:

"What is of real concern for the future is that many forecasters are expecting the jobless figures to soar during 2012, peaking in 2013. This is clearly unacceptable.

"Once again, young people, aged 18-to-24, are bearing the brunt of George Osborne’s cruel and blinkered economic and fiscal policies that have drained demand from the economy. The next generation is being sacrificed on the altar of economic Thatcherite orthodoxy.

"The fact that the government is borrowing money for people to do nothing explodes the deficit reduction strategy that has sucked confidence out of every corner of the economy and caused this surge in joblessness in the first place.

"This is money that could have gone towards creating jobs, boosting demand and plans for infrastructure projects. The government’s stewardship of the economy has been revealed as deeply flawed.

"The coalition’s vaunted claim that the private sector will provide the extra jobs to replace those being lost in their hundreds of thousands in the public sector has been proven simply not to be true.

"The coalition’s dead end economic policies may please the self-interested City elite, but for real people in real communities they are a tragedy – a national disgrace."
 

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• unemployment