The insecure economy
Amid the rising cost of living, the government is hiding behind falling unemployment figures while workers in almost every industry continue to suffer, writes Ella Glover.
“I work, and they say work is supposed to pay [but] my income seems to go onto the bills and council tax,” Zara, a single mother of three, told LBC host James O’Brien through tears last week. “I turned the boiler off a long time ago, and we use hot water bottles.” Due to the rising cost of living, Zara and her children are surviving off only one meal a day – despite her working full time.
As Zara’s story shows, work doesn’t mean security. Particularly when that work is casual, part-time or low-paid. That’s why, when the Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced last week that unemployment figures have returned to their pre-pandemic levels of 3.9 per cent and are forecast to drop year-on-year until 2026, it could hardly be considered an achievement. After all, what do employment rates tell us when full-time workers are going without basic necessities?
As it stands, unemployment figures, while outwardly promising, are nothing but a sticking plaster for the crumbling conditions of the UK labour market. Insecurity in the UK’s job market is rife and, according to a new report by think tanks Autonomy and the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS), insecurity has risen in 18 out of the 20 industries it analysed and across all of the nine main occupational groups since 2010, despite unemployment figures dropping consistently since 2005. Work insecurity has also risen across all regions, races and ages, with BAME people, women and young people hit the hardest. For that reason, the report, titled “The Insecure Economy”, argues that unemployment is an inadequate metric by which to measure the state of the UK’s labour market.
Insecure and unstable working conditions are no longer the preserve of the most precarious workers, such as food couriers and bar staff on low-paid, zero-hour contracts. Now, insecurity has seeped into the health and social care sector, education, and even academia, which has historically been considered middle-class. All have seen increased casualisation and the introduction of zero-hour contracts over the last few decades.
Bogus self-employment, forced self-employment, zero-hour contracts and fire and rehire practices are now rampant in the UK workforce, having been accelerated by the pandemic. Sunak’s furlough scheme may have kept unemployment down, but ensuring people can work isn’t enough to protect them from rising costs which are forcing some to choose between keeping their heating on and feeding themselves.
In-work poverty – or the number of people living below the poverty line despite earning a wage – has been on the rise, with the chance of households with two full-time workers being plunged into poverty more than doubling over the last two decades. Indeed, even before the pandemic, one in six working households were living in poverty, and more than 30 per cent of couple households with one full-time earner were in poverty – nearly as high as the rate of hardship for families without any full-time workers.
https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/uk-unemployment-is-falling-but-poverty-isnt/
Amid the rising cost of living, the government is hiding behind falling unemployment figures while workers in almost every industry continue to suffer, writes Ella Glover.
“I work, and they say work is supposed to pay [but] my income seems to go onto the bills and council tax,” Zara, a single mother of three, told LBC host James O’Brien through tears last week. “I turned the boiler off a long time ago, and we use hot water bottles.” Due to the rising cost of living, Zara and her children are surviving off only one meal a day – despite her working full time.
As Zara’s story shows, work doesn’t mean security. Particularly when that work is casual, part-time or low-paid. That’s why, when the Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced last week that unemployment figures have returned to their pre-pandemic levels of 3.9 per cent and are forecast to drop year-on-year until 2026, it could hardly be considered an achievement. After all, what do employment rates tell us when full-time workers are going without basic necessities?
As it stands, unemployment figures, while outwardly promising, are nothing but a sticking plaster for the crumbling conditions of the UK labour market. Insecurity in the UK’s job market is rife and, according to a new report by think tanks Autonomy and the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS), insecurity has risen in 18 out of the 20 industries it analysed and across all of the nine main occupational groups since 2010, despite unemployment figures dropping consistently since 2005. Work insecurity has also risen across all regions, races and ages, with BAME people, women and young people hit the hardest. For that reason, the report, titled “The Insecure Economy”, argues that unemployment is an inadequate metric by which to measure the state of the UK’s labour market.
Insecure and unstable working conditions are no longer the preserve of the most precarious workers, such as food couriers and bar staff on low-paid, zero-hour contracts. Now, insecurity has seeped into the health and social care sector, education, and even academia, which has historically been considered middle-class. All have seen increased casualisation and the introduction of zero-hour contracts over the last few decades.
Bogus self-employment, forced self-employment, zero-hour contracts and fire and rehire practices are now rampant in the UK workforce, having been accelerated by the pandemic. Sunak’s furlough scheme may have kept unemployment down, but ensuring people can work isn’t enough to protect them from rising costs which are forcing some to choose between keeping their heating on and feeding themselves.
In-work poverty – or the number of people living below the poverty line despite earning a wage – has been on the rise, with the chance of households with two full-time workers being plunged into poverty more than doubling over the last two decades. Indeed, even before the pandemic, one in six working households were living in poverty, and more than 30 per cent of couple households with one full-time earner were in poverty – nearly as high as the rate of hardship for families without any full-time workers.
https://www.huckmag.com/perspectives/uk-unemployment-is-falling-but-poverty-isnt/
Huck Magazine
UK unemployment is falling, but poverty isn’t
The government is hiding behind falling unemployment figures while workers in almost every industry continue to suffer, writes Ella Glover.
‘Questions from a Worker who Reads’ by Bertolt Brecht
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
Of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves.
The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Years War. Who
Else won it?
Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bill?
So many reports.
So many questions.
#poetry
Who built Thebes of the seven gates?
In the books you will find the names of kings.
Did the kings haul up the lumps of rock?
And Babylon, many times demolished
Who raised it up so many times? In what houses
Of gold-glittering Lima did the builders live?
Where, the evening that the Wall of China was finished
Did the masons go? Great Rome
Is full of triumphal arches. Who erected them? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Had Byzantium, much praised in song
Only palaces for its inhabitants? Even in fabled Atlantis
The night the ocean engulfed it
The drowning still bawled for their slaves.
The young Alexander conquered India.
Was he alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Did he not have even a cook with him?
Philip of Spain wept when his armada
Went down. Was he the only one to weep?
Frederick the Second won the Seven Years War. Who
Else won it?
Every page a victory.
Who cooked the feast for the victors?
Every ten years a great man.
Who paid the bill?
So many reports.
So many questions.
#poetry
#books
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19976_rethinking-marxist-approaches-to-transition-a-theory-of-temporal-dislocation-by-onur-acaroglu-reviewed-by-davide-gallo-lassere/
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/20033_how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-learning-to-fight-in-a-world-on-fire-by-andreas-malm-reviewed-by-john-rapko/
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/20088_work-without-the-worker-labour-in-the-age-of-platform-capitalism-by-phil-jones-reviewed-by-katjo-buissink/
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19976_rethinking-marxist-approaches-to-transition-a-theory-of-temporal-dislocation-by-onur-acaroglu-reviewed-by-davide-gallo-lassere/
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/20033_how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-learning-to-fight-in-a-world-on-fire-by-andreas-malm-reviewed-by-john-rapko/
https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/20088_work-without-the-worker-labour-in-the-age-of-platform-capitalism-by-phil-jones-reviewed-by-katjo-buissink/
marxandphilosophy.org.uk
‘Rethinking Marxist Approaches to Transition: A Theory of Temporal Dislocation’ by Onur Acaroglu reviewed by Davide Gallo Lassere
Onur Acaroglu’s rich and dense book on the issue of transition offers a close engagement with the history of Western…
Global military spending has reached its highest level since 1949
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/25/military-spending-reaches-record-levels-report
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/25/military-spending-reaches-record-levels-report
Aljazeera
World military spending hits all-time high, tops $2 trillion
The US, China, India, UK and Russia were the top five spenders, according to new data by defence think tank SIPRI.