Tag Archives: unemployment rate

It is not always that one wakes up badly to ‘good’ news, but there you have it! When looking at http://news.sky.com/story/1281763/interest-rate-rise-signals-end-of-crisis, we see the changes that are now at odds when we consider the end of a crisis.

The question becomes, why am I not all in glorious ‘hurray!’ on this one? The economy is getting better, the time line which I proclaimed since early 2013 has indeed been correct. All these people following some economic analyst on half-baked data have been proven wrong, so why am I not happy?

That is because this has all to do with what we call in Australia ‘Fair Dinkum‘. I have always believed in this and matters are not in any dinkum stage and they are a lot less fair.

The quote “With the economy recovering faster than anticipated, analysts predict the interest rate hike could even come as early as this year” is at the heart of this. You see, the economy has become strangely unbalanced. As powers had been given to big business, leaving many nations with certain levels of legalised slavery, we see that their businesses are indeed getting better, there is more commerce and as such, things should be getting on par for all. There is the crux, ‘on par for all’. That is the part that is no longer in the stated cost of business. For those working people, who has not heard the following “this is for <insert name of large company>, we have to finish this off today“, “if we lose this client, we have to let go more staff members” or “we can’t afford to keep slackers around“. On average well over 80% of the workers will have heard these phrases in their work environment. The BBC published this in 2005 (at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4149835.stm). The quote “Britons work so much unpaid overtime they are, on average, providing their employers with free work for the equivalent of nearly eight weeks of the year“. That was in 2005. I feel certain that this number is a lot higher now. So, it comes to companies getting almost 20% of free workforce and they are not in any hurry to change these numbers, which makes for two dangerous issues. One is that as this had not been dealt with the effect of legalised slavery grows and grows, which in term stops these people from adding people to the workforce, which means that the unemployment rate is not dealt with, so the end of a crises is not yet in sight and rate rises give a signal that almost 10% of the UK population are about to get worse off. When we look at two quotes from the same BBC article “People don’t tend to feel resentful because the whole bonus and compensation system is geared up to rewarding people for their performance” and “The whole thing’s just money driven. If people don’t feel their bonus is reward enough they’ll just leave and go somewhere else“, these two quotes ignore several markers. One is that bonuses are often for management only and the people working overtime are not paid for it. The second marker is that the term ‘go somewhere else’ is often not even an option, which makes for these two observations to be inaccurate and also guiding marks to how office slavery tends to get legalised. These parts are only emphasised by the small fact the BBC mentioned “Londoners do the most – putting in 7hrs 54mins extra per week“, that adds up to one day a week of unpaid work ‘free labour for the manager‘, do you have any idea how many billions this adds up to?

So when we see the end of the crises motion, we should regard this as an additional signal that exploitation is quite possibly reaching an almost uncanny height!

Let me be blunt to ‘some’ extent, I am not against working an extra hour every now and then. This just shows dedication to your work, but an average of 8 hours a week is not dedication, but clear exploitation. It is interesting that no one is currently actively researching those bosses is it not?

So how did I get to this when we consider the quote in the Sky News article “the British economy is growing, that jobs are being created, and homes are being built, and that’s part of our economic plan“?

First we have the following BBC article (at http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27791749) stating the following “The number of people out of work fell by 161,000 to 2.16 million, bringing the unemployment rate down to 6.6%“, which is great news. The second quote to consider is “But the quarterly rate of earnings growth, including bonuses, slowed to 0.7% from 1.9% the previous month“. So, are these connected? Consider the following “The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in May fell by 27,400 to 1.09 million, the ONS said“. So the jobs created are not on par. Yes, there are less seeking a job seekers allowance, but that is not the only source. It seems that jobs are shifting, but how many people ended up with multiple jobs just to get the bills paid?

In my view the last quote gives us the angle “Weak pay growth and the ‘cost of living crisis’ remains the Achilles heel of the economic recovery, said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.” This is where the elements meet. Yes, the UK is getting stronger, but what side is getting stronger? If we consider those happy to even have a job and working one day a week for no pay, then the bosses are mighty happy, yet when we consider the payments required getting by, we see a dangerous side that is now rearing its ugly head. I think it is important EVERYWHERE in the Commonwealth that we do not end up with some kind of Wal-Mart example, where the working people ending up on food stamps and government support because their income still keeps them below the poverty line. Whatever the republic on the other side of the Pacific river (for people in the UK it is that nation on the other side of the Atlantic river) wants to do, but we as children of the British Empire (I like the old titles at times) have a sworn duty to ourselves and to our sovereign Queen to make lives better for all of us as well as for our country. We do not deny our bosses their profits, but they are required to give us the fair share of our labour, unpaid overtime to the extent it is pushed onto many of us is massively unacceptable.

It is perhaps the one blemish that is still undealt with if we consider the following (at https://www.gov.uk/overtime-your-rights/overview), where it states “Employers don’t have to pay workers for overtime. However, employees’ average pay for the total hours worked mustn’t fall below the National Minimum Wage” I think it is up to the Prime Minister (David Cameron) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (George Osborne) to change that part into “Employers don’t have to pay workers for overtime. However, employees’ total overtime hours worked must never exceed 10% of the paid hours worked a week”. I just saved the people in London half a day of non-paid working hours, which might get more people into jobs as well.

I will of course as per today humbly accept my knighthood (should it be offered).