UNEMPLOYMENT IN WALES

Having left Cardiff first thing this morning for various meetings in London, I haven't had the chance to catch up with any news until about half an hour ago.

Of course, the biggest story of the day, at least for me, is that of rising unemployment in Wales, which has risen more than any other region for June-August 2009.

The headline data is that there are now 130,000 unemployed people in Wales, a rise of 24,000 on Mar-May 2009. This rise accounts for 29 per cent of the increase in unemployment across the UK and means that 45,000 more people are out of work as compared to a year ago – a rise of 53.1 per cent.

Will it continue to rise? Probably, because figure this doesn’t even include the recent losses at Anglesey Aluminium, for example.

Only a few months ago, we had government politicians lining up to claim that unemployment was falling in Wales and there was nothing to worry about because ProAct was the solution to all this country’s ills. As this blog has argued time and time again, ProAct is a one trick pony that can help but cannot, and will not, solve this recession.

So what could and should have been done?

Rather than repeat myself again, read the article I wrote on Wales Home on this issue.

More importantly, tune in on Saturday when I will reveal how the Assembly Government is threatening thousands of more businesses in Wales with another ill-guided policy decision (or lack of one).

Comments

Nick Braithwaite said…

Great article, it's ridiculous that politicians felt that unemployment was going to recover so quickly after this recession especially one as severe as this. As a 22 year old student I have started up my own web based business which should hopefully help to give some of the unemployed in Cardiff a chance of finding temporary jobs and ultimately getting back into work. I feel that turning Wales into a more entrepreneurial nation is the way forward, how you go about doing that with such a large budget deficit is beyond me.

October 15, 2009 6:19 pm

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