UK unemployment rose by 114,000 between June and August to 2.57 million, a 17-year high, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the unemployment rate also increased to 8.1%.The jobless total for 16 to 24-year-olds hit a record high of 991,000 in the quarter, a jobless rate of 21.3%. The number of people out of work and claiming benefits rose 17,500 to 1.6 million in September. Other figures showed a record cut in the number of part-time workers, down by 175,000, and there was also a record reduction of 74,000 in the number of over-65s in employment.
These figures came out on 13 October. They add to a week from hell. The unemployment figures could have been added to the list of last weeks horrors. They are another set of statistics which demonstrate why our market system of business and work, is busted.
Old people sleeping in their piss in hospital; thousands without any prospect of a place to live; millions losing huge chunks of their standard of living; all these are part of the story of this crisis.
But the real horror, the price of this benighted system that is most cruel, is that our children will have a worse life that we do.
60 years ago our grandparents fought the nazis. The nazis came out of the 1930s - a broken down economic system - and millions had to fight and die to stop them.
It is surely not beyond the intelligence of men and women to make economics and politics which serve humanity. We are not fanatics. We understand that mass murder and dictatorship are the route to destruction. Huge mistakes have been made by desperate people. But it is surely the main thing we still have to do - all of us living now - to turn our efforts towards a place where all, where the poor, where those who labour and those who struggle, are the focus of our system of society. Today we have a way of life - a civilisation - dedicated to those with wealth and power. It was always wrong. It is not working. We must turn it inside out.
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