Unemployment reaches 1998 levels

Emergency job creation scheme needed now Unemployment levels this week reached August 1998 levels with 8% officially unemployed. Paddy Meehan, the Socialist Party’s South Belfast spokesperson hit out at the Assembly’s lack of action on rising unemployment.

“Unemployment is at crisis levels. More than 59,000 people are officially unemployed, but this is not the true figure. The Assembly parties are covering up the true extent of this crisis. An additional 55,000 people who are looking for work are classified as economically inactive but do not appear on the official unemployment figures. The real number of unemployed people in Northern Ireland stands at 114,000.

“Youth unemployment has reached a new high with 22.5% officially out of work. Instead of creating jobs the parties in the Assembly Executive are about to set a budget which will lead to 30-40,000 job losses! This is economic madness.

“We need an emergency job creation scheme to get people back to work. The banks should be taken fully into public ownership and run democratically in the interests of the ordinary people and used to invest in a massive job creation scheme.

 

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