Shock Jobless Rise Shows 'Austerity not Working'

15 Mar 2011

The shock rise in unemployment to almost 15 percent is concrete proof that austerity is not working and must be abandoned by the new Government, Congress Economic Advisor Paul Sweeney said today.

Mr Sweeney called on the new Government not to continue with the austerity programme drawn up by the discredited Fianna Fail/ Green coalition as "it will likely plunge Ireland into another year of a downward deflationary spiral and throw yet more people out of work."

He said: "The last Government took too much demand out of the economy by cutting too deeply and taxing low and middle incomes. Together with wage and welfare cuts, this has crushed domestic demand and led directly to thousands of job losses. It makes no sense for the new Government to continue with policies that are guaranteed to cost more jobs. Exports alone will not be sufficient to counter the savage reductions in domestic demand."

He described the rise in the numbers of long-term unemployed as "extremely worrying." Today's figures show the numbers out of work for more than a year almost doubled, increasing from 4.1% of the workforce to 7.3%.

"People out of work for more than a year now make up over half of the total number unemployed. This has not happened since the late 1990s. Its time to review the extent of the cuts in public spending and in public investment, otherwise we face another year of falling national income, falling confidence, rising unemployment and emigration," Mr Sweeney said.

 

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