Emergency Budget 'Will Cost 1.3 Million Jobs'

Chancellor George Osborne's tough emergency budget will cost more than a million jobs across the UK, according to a leaked Treasury report.

Estimates on the impact of the spending squeeze show the Government is expecting up to 600,000 public sector jobs and 700,000 private sector jobs to go by 2015, The Guardian said.

The leaked report outlining the 1.3 million job cuts was produced by civil servants for ministers in the days leading up to the emergency budget.

According to the newspaper, a slide from the presentation read: "100-120,000 public sector jobs and 120-140,000 private sector jobs assumed to be lost per annum for five years through cuts."

The Tories did not have to take these measures. They chose to take them.

Shadow chancellor Alistair Darling

 
In the Budget, Mr Osborne outlined plans to cut some Whitehall department budgets by 25%, resulting in large-scale public sector job losses.

The Treasury is assuming growth in the private sector will create 2.5 million jobs in the next five years to compensate for the spending squeeze.

Those estimates appear ambitious given the lack of growth in the world economy and jitters surrounding the markets.

Opposition leaders and trade unions said the figures proved the scale of the cuts in public spending would hamper Britain's economic recovery.

Shadow chancellor Alistair Darling said: "Far from being open and honest, as George Osborne put it, he failed to tell the country there would be very substantial job losses as a result of his Budget.

"The Tories did not have to take these measures. They chose to take them.

"They are not only a real risk to the recovery but hundreds of thousands of people will pay the price for the poor judgement of the Conservatives, fully supported by the Liberal Democrats."

Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT transport union, has called for "general and co-ordinated strike action" to stop the government's "savage assault on jobs".

He said: "This ConDem administration has thrown down the biggest challenge to the trade union movement since Margaret Thatcher took on the National Union of Mineworkers.

"I have no hesitation in saying that it will take general and co-ordinated strike action across the public and private sectors to stop their savage assault on jobs, living standards and public services."

A statement from the Treasury said: "The Independent Office of Budget Responsibility forecasts that unemployment will fall in every year and employment will rise, as the Guardian's article acknowledges."

 

Source - Sky News

Posted Date: 30th Jun 2010