RECESSION DENIERS

I remain disappointed at how the BBC seems to continue its meek acceptance of the line from the Welsh Assembly Government about the economy recovering every time unemployment figures are released.

Yesterday, the headline was that:'Unemployment in Wales rises by 9,000 to 125,000, but the economy minister says there are "encouraging signs"'.

I don't know which branch of SpecSavers the BBC buy their rose-tinted glasses from, but I would hardly describe the fact that nearly half of the UK increase in unemployment has come from Wales as "encouraging signs".

In fact, it is an absolute disaster for the economy.

Worst of all, it shows that ProAct - the only instrument which WAG seems to have at its disposal - has had little effect on unemployment figures in Wales, contrary to the line peddled by WAG and supported by the BBC on every occasion.

For example, a cursory glance at unemployment statistics at the other parts of the UK that do not have such programmes - such as the North West of England, the West Midlands, Northern Ireland and Scotland - shows that their unemployment rate actually decreased during the last quarter.

At best, ProAct has subsidised workers who would otherwise have gone on shorter time flexible working and there is no evidence whatsoever that any of those supported by the scheme would have been laid off without this support.

The case of Corus taking £1.1 million from the programme when it admitted there was no redundancy threat should have set off alarms in the BBC and yet there seems to be very little attempt to actually question the value of this particular scheme?

>Did anybody bother talking to JCB to ask why they didn't take it up?

Has anybody bothered querying why two thirds of the funding has gone to large companies when the European Convergence Fund (which paid for ProAct) is there to be focused on SMEs?

Has anyone questioned why some areas, such as the North West of Wales, have been given almost no funding under this scheme?

Of course not.

The line from the BBC is to accept whatever Ieuan Wyn Jones' press office or special advisers throws their way.

They seem happy to accept how the Deputy First Minister and his press office now cast doubt on official labour force statistics that his government was more than ready to support a few months ago when they showed a drop in the unemployment rate. As he said yesterday,

"However, we remain cautious in over-interpreting the latest figures, especially the quarterly ILO [International Labour Organisation] data, which has proved highly volatile during the year".

We all remember the scramble by Plaid AMs during the summer to say that the recession was over when the same statistics showed that unemployment had fallen slightly. Now that they show unemployment is rising, the data is described as 'highly volatile', despite the fact that they have been showing constantly rising unemployment since the summer.

Instead of accepting these internationally verified statistics, the Minister for Economy and Transport implores us to examine the JobSeekers Allowance (JSA) figures which are actually declining, albeit by 500 individuals in Wales between October and November.

What the Minister conveniently omits from his press release is the fact that JSA doesn't actually cover everyone who is looking for work at this present time. For example, contribution-based Jobseeker's Allowance is only paid for 182 days and excludes the self-employed whilst income-based Jobseeker's Allowance is based on income and savings and is only for those on a low income.

Therefore, it is clear that the JSA will miss out a significant proportion of those looking for a job who, for various reasons, will not qualify. Read this and this for two simple examples of the problems with JSA.

In addition, it is clear that after six months, the chances are that you will no longer qualify for JSA support and will fall off the register. The statistics for November seem to bear this out with the fall being accounted for not by those who are claiming JSA for six months but a fall for those claiming between 6 and 12 months.

For the Minister to read anything into such figures is ridiculous in the extreme and is in danger of casting even further doubt on the credibility of an Assembly Government that buried its head in the sand over the state of the Welsh economy.

The facts are clear for all to see.

Wales remains at the bottom of the economic league table in the UK, has the lowest gross weekly wage in the UK, has the lowest level of private sector R&D in the UK, has seen its tourist industry decline dramatically in the last three years, has had the largest fall in export performance in the UK during the last twelve months and has seen its manufacturing sector collapse since the Assembly was established in 1999. Of course, it also has the worst performance of any UK region in terms of unemployment during the last three months.

The saddest thing is that, like the rest of the Welsh establishment, the BBC seems to be happy to go along with this line rather than doing what its real job should be, which is to report the facts as they stand without the usual Government spin and, more importantly, to investigate what is really going on in the Welsh economy.