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TUC warn job cuts could spell regional disaster

National trade union, TUC, has warned that the additional job cuts in the public sector, announced in November’s autumn statement, will devastate regional labour markets and make finding a job tougher.

Ahead of tomorrow’s unemployment figures, the union said redundancies across the NHS, local government, the civil service and education would seriously damage local economies.

710,000 jobs are set to go, and TUC has used existing regional unemployment figures to determine which parts of the UK will be hardest hit.

The North East and Northern Ireland look set to be worst off between now and 2017, when all the jobs have disappeared, while the South East and East of England will be less affected.

TUC calculations suggest that by 2017 Northern Ireland is likely to see 25,992 jobs (3.2%) lost across public services, and the North East will lose 32,668 jobs, representing 2.9%.

TUC General Secretary, Brendan Barber, said: “Tomorrow’s figures are unlikely to bring good news.

“For the 2.6 million people currently without work, their prospects of finding a job look ever harder, and with thousands of jobs set to go across our public services while private sector job creation stagnates, the picture is set to get much, much worse.

“Apart from the huge effect that the job cuts will have upon the provision of public services across the UK, mass redundancies across the public sector are bad news for our struggling economy, and will have a devastating impact upon local high streets, as newly-unemployed public sector workers simply stop spending.

“The government needs to devote much more time and energy towards solving our growing jobs crisis.

“Instead it’s making the problem worse, cutting jobs in the public sector and failing to secure growth to protect private sector employees.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .