THE Trades Union Congress (TUC) warned of a ‘national emergency’ yesterday as the latest unemployment figures were published, showing that UK unemployment rose to 1.97 million by the end of 2008.
The TUC’s general secretary, Brendan Barber, said: ‘This is another set of dreadful figures, and we fear worse is still to come.
‘The government must act as boldly on unemployment as they are on the banking sector. In these tough times, people need to know the government is on their side.
‘Benefits and redundancy pay need to be raised to cushion the financial blow to the newly unemployed.
‘The government needs urgently to introduce a short time working subsidy to help companies avoid redundancies in the first place,’ Barber pleaded.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of UNISON – the biggest public service union – said: ‘The government has helped bail out the bankers, they must now throw out a lifeline to the growing numbers of workers facing the dole queue.
‘The cost of a job lost to an individual or a family is enormous.
‘The cost of job losses to the taxpayer, in whatever sector is enormous. Each redundancy is a personal tragedy.’
GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny commented: ‘What a bleak day for our economy and for the workers and families of those workers now jobless.
‘All across the world workers are losing their jobs daily at a very fast rate in this bankers’ recession.
‘The very minimum that needs to be done is to stop lenders repossessing their houses when they cannot meet their monthly mortgage repayments.’
Figures from the Office for National Statistics for October-December last year showed unemployment rising by 146,000 to 1.97 million – the highest level since 1997.
Young people between the age of 18 and 24 have been particularly hard hit, with the youth unemployment rate standing at 11.8 per cent.
The sector with the largest number of sackings was finance and business services, which cut 72,000 jobs.
Overall job vacancies fell to 504,000 in December 2008 – compared to 684,000 in December 2007.
For January 2009, the massaged figures for the number of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants rose 73,800 to reach 1.23 million.
The jobless figures are expected to continue rising rapidly this year, passing three million by the end of 2009.
Peter Mooney, from Employment Law Advisory Services, said: ‘From early in December, the number of firms seeking our help in making redundancies simply exploded.’
David Kern, of the British Chambers of Commerce, the business organisation, called for a cut in business rates, a freezing of the national minimum wage and no increase in National Insurance contributions.
