Fri, 11 Feb 2005

3.6% Unemployment - Worth Celebrating?

"I would be more excited about the unemployment rate if I thought for a moment it was a true figure," said Libertarianz leader Bernard Darnon this morning.

"If we truly did have the lowest unemployment rate in the OECD, then I and my Libertarianz colleagues would be joining in the celebrations," says Darnton, who says that Labour's trumpeting of this figure simply diverts attention from the real figures.

"Steve Maharey would have you believe that only 76,000 are jobless, yet put simply so that even he can understand, there are currently over 300,000 working-age adults on benefits (about 15% of the workforce) which includes over 200,000 households headed by people on benefits - most of whom are not included in Little Stevie's figures.

The fact is," continues Darnton, "while the official unemployment rate provided by the Household Labour Force Survey has dropped to 3.6 percent, the same survey shows the percentage of one parent households with dependent children, where nobody is employed, is 51.6 percent. There are now more children relying on the sickness, invalid and domestic purposes benefits than when Labour was elected in late 1999."

There is nothing to celebrate in these figures, says Darnton. "Labour is massaging the figures to suit themselves - the surprise is that anybody is buying their artifice."

Darnton affirms his own party's Employment policy, which predicts that "unemployment under a Libertarianz Government would increase dramatically - amongst consultants, bureaucrats, planners, lawyers and accountants! Libertarianz are committed," he says, "to getting Nanny State off our backs, out of our pockets and out of our lives! We will abolish outright the regulations, Departments, Commissions and Ministries, statutes and tax codes that feed the parasites and stifle enterprise."

ENDS

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