There
are storm clouds on the horizon for the economy in the North. While the
recession took longer to bite than in the South this only reflects the
weakness of capitalism and the predominance of public sector
employment. There are now as many people who are economically inactive
(26%) than work in “private industry.” But the crisis has now caught up
with a vengeance and it is only going to get worse.
The
North is in the firing line from the British Tory/ Liberal Democrat
coalition who have said that planned spending cuts will fall most
severely on those areas where there is a high density of public sector
employment. This means the North of Ireland and the North East of
England in particular. But the effect in the North where 70% of jobs
are in the public sector is likely to be catastrophic.
As the Sunday Business Post reported on 22/8/10:
The
North’s economy is in danger of going into freefall and could be facing
‘‘a ten-year period of deflation and joblessness’’, according to one of
the region’s leading trade union representatives.
Peter
Bunting, assistant secretary general of the Irish Congress of Trade
Unions (Ictu), said that as many as 30,000 public sector jobs could be
lost in the coming months, with even more lay-offs in the private
sector.
‘‘We’re on the verge of the
abyss," he told The Sunday Business Post. ‘‘Unemployment in Northern
Ireland is becoming a massive crisis."
Unemployment
has now risen by 33,000 over the last 3 years. The actual rate of
unemployment is 6.6% which is lower than the Republic and Britain, but
the big issue is that the cuts haven’t really begun to bite. The Tory
budget telegraphed some figures for potential cuts, but the effects
won’t become clear until after a Comprehensive Spending Review in
October and they will be dramatic.
The Sunday Business Post continues:
‘‘In
most of the UK regions, numbers on the dole have started to drop off,
but in Northern Ireland the opposite seems to be happening," said
Ulster Bank chief economist Richard Ramsey.
‘‘There
hasn’t been an improvement in the underlying fundamentals in the
economy since the credit crunch and that’s why we are not seeing any
improvement on the jobs front." Ramsey highlighted the fall-off in the
construction industry as a significant factor in the North’s rising
unemployment rates.
‘‘There hasn’t
really been any recovery at all here. In terms of the double-dip
recession we haven’t even come up for air yet to go back under.
‘‘The public expenditure cuts are only starting to filter through.
So,
of all the UK regions, we are in the most vulnerable position," said
Ramsey. He anticipates a further 70,000 job losses in the North over
the next 18months.
This
would be an utter disaster for the North and the effect will be most
dramatic in the working class areas, in both communities. One thing is
for sure none of the parties sitting in Stormont have any solution to
the jobs crisis, this is a class issue.
These
cuts will affect all workers regardless of religion. They will
devastate services and the communities that depend upon them. They will
affect the young, the old, the sick and the vulnerable. The cuts will
have a knock on effect on the private sector also, particularly the
building trades, as school building programmes are slashed. The Tories
have launched an economic civil war on the North. What’s needed is a
united response from the whole of the working class. The situation
demands an urgent response from the public sector trade unions and a
united working class political response to the Tories’ class war
politics.
