Reblogged from Michael Meacher MP
The latest quarterly jobs figures reported by Manpower reveal the real truth about the economy, not the gushing presentation offered by Osborne in his Autumn Statement, but what the men (nearly always men) with power and money really think. After the supposedly independent OBR upped its growth forecast for this year from 0.6% in March to 1.4% and next year to 2.5%, one would expect employers to be pursuing an investment and re-employment strategy to exploit the promised surge in growth. Not a bit of it. Despite the government’s triumphalist forecasts that the economy is now growing at the fastest lick for a decade, employers are taking a much more cautious and nervous line. They’ve continued to hire largely part-time staff, revealing their concern that the recovery still remains fragile. In fact the biggest source of new employment isn’t across the economy as a whole, but actually in energy firms who’ve recruited thousands of new staff to deal with the blizzard of complaints about soaring electricity and gas bills.
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