back to article Budget to cost over a million jobs: Official

Figures from the Treasury suggest the UK economy is likely to shrink by 1.3 million jobs. The figures are a Treasury assessment of the impact of George Osborne's misery budget. Civil servants expect to see between 500,000 and 600,000 jobs go in the public sector and redundancies of between 600,000 and 700,000 in the private …

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  1. tony
    Happy

    A Title,

    Don't you mean Budgets expected to create 1.2 million jobs then?

    1.2 private sector tax positive jobs as well for the double win

    Seems like the Liberal Torycrats have made a great start at handling labours dire handling of the economy.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    He said it

    I wonder how many will howl for not voting 'Gordo'

    1. Adam Salisbury
      Grenade

      Hmmm let's see....

      All the public sector bork-barrellers

      Bankers

      My heart bleeds

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Depends...

    If that's a million slackers (which most of those on the public sector gravytrain are), then this is REALLY good news.

    1. Santa from Exeter
      FAIL

      Coward is right!

      Do you actually know anybody who works in the Public Service, or is this just your average knee-jerk-Daily-Mail-reading-pillock response?

      If the latter it equates to the CBI smugly telling the Public Sector workers that the 'Good Times' (tm) have dissappeared, when for most of us they never even arrived!

      Try below inflation pay rises delivered up to a year late for the last 10 years before you whine about 'overpaid' Civil Servants.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        WTF?

        "Try below inflation pay rises delivered up to a year late for the last 10 years before you whine about 'overpaid' Civil Servants."

        You had a pay rise every year for 10 years? Even if it is a year late, that's 6 more pay rises than I have had in the last 10 years in the private sector, and those I had were inflation or below too.

        Do you actually know anyone in the private sector?

        1. Santa from Exeter

          WTF Indeed

          Yup, I know plenty who work in the Private Sector. if you have only had 4 pay rises in 10 years you worked for a sh1t employer!

          My pay is currently circa 17K pa less than the equivalent in the Private sector in the South West, my pension (about to come under attack probably) is worth about 10K pa, so where's the other 7K then?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            WTF Indeed indeed

            "if you have only had 4 pay rises in 10 years you worked for a sh1t employer!!"

            No, I think you'll find most private sector workers have had little or no rises recently. We have also had to take loss of pension rights, or reduced pensions, increased contributions, pay cuts and or work longer hours, and job losses. The point is that while the private sector have been suffering for the last few years, the public sector, by and large has carried on as before.

            So it is not that I worked for a sh1t employer, they were average, the public sector is out of step in accepting reality.

            Look at unemployment now - those people did not come from the public sector or fall out of the sky.

            And just to set the record straight, of course I know many people who work in the public sector, doesn't everyone, and isn't that the point?

      2. The BigYin

        @Santa

        Public servants have it W-A-Y better than the rpivatye secotr (who actually expected to do some work into the bargai). Tray: no real pension, no perks, no discounts on mortgages etc, no pay-raises, no "job for life".

        You can take your "hard-done-by-public-sector-worker" and shove it, buster. And you had better change you expectation is you are ever employed in the private sector.

    2. Shinobi87

      stop talking shit

      problem with the public sector is to much middle managemeny. you will find the lower rungs of the workforce are the ones to get laid off while all the managers continue like nothing happens. this will get rid of the people who do the work not the slackers

    3. Chris Miller

      You're both right (to an extent)

      Disclaimer: I've never worked in the public sector, but my wife does.

      While there are many skilled, dedicated and hard-working staff in the public sector, there are far too many skivers (9-to-5ers are much more common than in the private sector) and middle managers (private sector businesses have spent years flattening their management structure, but this has yet to be applied to the same extent in the public sector).

      Wages for comparable jobs are broadly in line with the private sector (as would need to be the case to prevent everyone leaving and allow for recruitment to take place), but there are many for whom it's difficult to identify equivalent private sector work - e.g. planners and social workers.

      @Santa - if you really think you can earn so much more in the private sector, why aren't you there? Is it because you:

      [a] don't have the right skills;

      [b] don't want to relocate; or

      [c] get more job satisfaction in your current role?

      Whichever it is, your continued presence suggests your salary is appropriate.

  4. LuMan
    WTF?

    Er....

    I'm a little confused here. We're expecting upwards of half a million jobs being made unavailable over the next 5 years in the public sector. Disregarding retirements and voluntary redundancies, etc. let's just say that half a million more people will be unemployed.

    THEN we expect* growth in the public sector of 2.5 million jobs, over the same timeframe. Surely this means we can look forward to 2 million more jobs over the next 5 years?? Am I wrong?? Is it just me?? (must drink more coffee).

    *Looking at the terminology, the UK economy is LIKELY to shrink, but the Treasury are BETTING on growth. Maybe I'm sceptical, but I've got a feeling which way these numbers will fall!

  5. Piers

    Right...

    So Public Sector employees are complaining (with 'forecast' figures) that policies that affect them are BAD in an attempt to discredit a government that refuses to lavish more money on them?

    OK - call me cynical if you want...

    1. Doshu

      lets cut the shit

      Are there inefficiencies in the public system? Yup. No argument there.

      Is it be possible to make the system leaner and more efficient? Definitely. There's always room for improvement (especially here).

      Are *all* public sector employees lazy passengers on some gravy train? Hell no. And anyone who truly thinks so is simple-minded and/or ignorant.

  6. Alex C
    Megaphone

    Apparently this is some surprise to you?

    It was made very clear in the run up to the election that the worst of Labour's public service excesses would be cut through a job and pay freeze in the civil service. That lot, despite Brown's promises of prudence were wildly overspending in the boom years and we're saddled with a public service we can't afford and should never have allowed to grow to that extent in the first place.

    Yes there will be a double dip recession - there was always going to be. Brown was printing money to get us out of it. To begin with it was definitely the right thing to do - lowering the value of the pound gave us a huge trading advantage over Europe and to an extent the US which their monetary systems are too inflexible to cope with. However it had to stop before we started to behave like Zimbabwe. If we'd lost our AAA credit status we'd have to start paying higher interest on the £167b public deficit, which would have landed us in a similar position to Greece and Spain.

    It's payback time and it's a lot better than it could be.

  7. nichomach
    FAIL

    The government are betting that...

    ...the private sector will up recruitment to absorb the cuts; problem is that they've already said they won't - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cb2155d0-83dd-11df-ba07-00144feabdc0.html (registration probably necessary). Thank you Gorgeous George and Double-Dip Dave.

  8. MadEddieH
    FAIL

    Oh come on - do the maths

    2.5 - 1.3 = 1.2 so that means budget to create over a million jobs : Official should be the title....honestly

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Go

    Where did people *think* these savings were coming from?

    Really.

  10. iMlite
    WTF?

    An alternative headline

    ConDem Budget to create additional 1.2 Million jobs over the next 5 years!

    The budget will create a shift in the workforce from public sector and government contracted private sector to new independent private sector jobs. It is a process that is time dependent (5 years) and relies on a projected slow but sustained post recession economic growth.

    As per usual a lack of knowledge amongst the general public of time scales and local and world economics are being used to confuse the issues. I might add that there is no double dip on the way, just post bust economic oscillations including corrections which should stabilise in the next 5 to 10 years before another boom.

    The problem is that this story has been picked up from the Guardian which has cherry picked leaked stats for its own lefty readership.

  11. Uncle Slacky Silver badge

    Coincidentally...

    Isn't 1.3 million about the same number of public sector jobs as were "created" in the last 13 years or so?

    1. Laurence Blunt
      Big Brother

      Close...

      Public sector jobs in 1997: 5.2m

      Public sector jobs in 2010: 6.1M

      Around 1991 the numbers are almost the same as today (about 6M), but that did include the likes of: British Steel, BT, BL, BR and all the utilities that were later sold off.

      So we had a 20% increase in the number of public sector workers, but I for sure don't see bugger all improvement in services (excluding the NHS which has got a bit better).

      Perhaps the reason the roads are all broken down like your average 3rd world country is due to the money all going on those salaries and massive pensions.

      There was a time when public sector jobs had relatively low pay compared to the private sector, so the generous pensions were perhaps OK, but recent statistics showed the average public sector wage is £470/week, while the average private sector wage is now £430/week.

      Big Bro; as that was Moron Browns dream.

  12. Michael Chester
    IT Angle

    Other alternative headline

    "Budget to definitely cost 600,000 jobs, lack of certainty from treasury over private sector* means that the actual impact could be double this in either direction: Official"

    *and quite rightly so, it is, by definition, not government controlled

    Not quite as snappy, I'll admit

  13. s. pam Silver badge
    Alert

    Fab news for the private sector.....seriously!

    This means private employers can get skilled staff for cheaper, or nearer realist market rates and not have to pay for all the training, certifications, etc. How's that a bad thing?

    Then we can take all the worthless office space in WHitehall, etc and convert it to yuppie flats and make a profit on the space, so double the savings :):)

  14. Craig (well, I was until The Reg changed it to Craig 16)

    Lies, damn lies and politicians (more apt than the old saying)

    The government cannot create 2.5m private sector jobs, it can simply pray to $deity that someone will create them from somewhere. They CAN get rid of public sector jobs and they can indirectly cause private sector job losses through reducing state spending with the private sector.

    1.3m jobs will go, 2.5m are just a wishful hope from the chancellor.

    Pro-Tories will see 1.2m net jobs created

    Pro-Labour will see 1.3m jobs lost for nothing more than an empty promise

    Pro-Lib Dems will be wondering how long it is until their membership cards expire.

    Please note, none of the above detracts in any way from the genuine necessity of cutting the annual deficit and overall government debt.

  15. Charles Calthrop
    Thumb Down

    bad bad bad

    all that will happen is that state provision will surely get worse and logica and capita might get bigger. I love the idea that everyone in the public sector is on a gravy train!

    some gravy. Some train!

  16. The BigYin

    Remove the quangocrats

    Why do we need quango wonks on £350k pa? That's almost double the PM's salary FFS!

    And while we're at it...

    Bring Network Rail, Foundation Hospitals and PFI contracts on to the public books so we can get a clearer idea of the vast debt Labour has left us and our children with.

    If this is done, it would not surprise me to find out that the UK is basically bankrupt.

  17. The Jase

    Job losses

    Do I see civil unrest in the near future?

    Wait until people start losing their homes.

    1. John G Imrie

      You won't have to wait that long.

      Just wait until the next City Bonus Session. The sight of all those investment bankers swilling champaign should do the trick.

  18. Craig 2
    Stop

    re: I love the idea that everyone in the public sector is on a gravy train!

    They >were< on the gravy train, looks like it's derailed due to lack of investment in the "network".

    1. Charles Calthrop

      gravy train

      I've worked in the private sector 5 years and the public ten. While there are well paid managers in the public sector now, in terms of pay for normal people, work volume, stress, uncertainty over employment, spending restrictions and so on, the public sector is worse. The idea that we all just sit around quaffing freebies from the state is lamentably wrong.

      Yes, lets just get rid of all the quangos, and let parents run and regulate their own schools and advise on educational policies, IT and let their employers determine their own equality and health and safety legislation. Lets let drug companies regulate their own drugs and advise on developmental aid.

      People think that quango == waste with no real knowledge of what they do. It's capita, network rail and mckinsley we'd be better off being shot of.

  19. Mickey Porkpies
    FAIL

    Reality Check

    err lets not forget how we got into this mess ...it wasn't the public sector!! Also don't go on about slacking government workers I admit to have come over some of them in my 20 years working with Governments (local and central) but come across just as much if not more over paid and under skilled private sector consultants and had to clear up their messes.

    The private sector is not better than public sector, there's good and bad in both wake up and smell the shit

    1. tony
      Happy

      yes it was...

      ..especially if you count politicians as public sector

      If you have a deficit when the economy is at it's peak you're going to have big problems when it goes down, whatever triggers the downturn.

      So Labour creating a vast army of public sector workers / more than likely to be labour voters, whilst not being able to afford to pay is the heart of the issue.

      Put simply, if you earn £1000 a month and spend ~£950 every month apart from at Christmas where you spend £1500 you've got a cyclical deficit. If you decide to employ a cleaner and gardener for £200 a month meaning you spend £1150 every month apart from Christmas where you spend £1700. Sooner or later the bank manager is going to have a chat about your spending.

      Not that I blame the workers, its the politicians who created the environment where money was sucked out of the real economy to create this situation. With any luck the decent public sector workers will either retain work or find a new job.

    2. Gaius
      FAIL

      Actually...

      ... It was, mate. Gordo spent more on you lot than he was collecting in taxes, to the tune of 25% of the budget. Salaries matching the private sector, gold plated pensions, one million more of you to do what exactly? Public sector types ain't all nurses and firemen.

      Or are you going to claim there was no deficit prior to 2008. Cos you'd be lying.

  20. Asgard
    Unhappy

    Greedy bankers

    Lets not forget its the greedy bankers who threw us all into this vast economic mess (and the vast insanely corrupt government mismanagement hand outs to prop them up again without forcing new employment terms onto them) and it looks like we have years more suffering to endure thanks to their arrogant greed. Yet look at how many bankers are still in their high paid jobs whilst the rest of the country is left to suffer the consequences of the bankers arrogance. They are still living the high life whilst we all suffer because of them.

    1. Rob

      Straw

      The greedy bankers were just the last straw that broke the camels back, it was already overloaded withe a few bales from Labour spending.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    The REAL problem...

    ...is there is so much form filling, jobs for the boys, H&S stupidity, and total inefficency that workers can't actually do their jobs.

    My wife is expected to spend 4 hours a week in a team meeting, has dozens of "training" courses per year, yet only works part time as a form filler (sorry Social Worker), so can't actually do the job.

    Another collegue works in IT in the NHS. If they want to move a pc (yes a pc, not a server) from one desk to another, they need to contact maintence to do the actually move, however maintenance can not move the pc, unless it has been unplugged by IT. So it takes TWO people to move a desktop pc 3ft. Oh and then theres the phone, which requires a 3rd person.

    1. John G Imrie

      When I was a nipper

      Going on strike didn't cut it. However a 'work to rule' could bring a factory to its knees.

      1. Ricky H
        Happy

        interesting viewpoint

        Even without a union office drones could club together and start throwing some bureaucracy back in managements face. Thing is most of the office drones i've attended the office with over the last 6 years are spineless brown-nosing so-and-so's who tow the official line even if it does not represent their best interests. Office workers are so down trodden and emotionally beaten into submission that Stockholm syndrome pervades.

        the UK is in for a stretch of deflation, then inflation.

        that's it i'm done.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      wtf

      "Another collegue works in IT in the NHS. If they want to move a pc (yes a pc, not a server) from one desk to another, they need to contact maintence to do the actually move, however maintenance can not move the pc, unless it has been unplugged by IT."

      Tell your colleague to grow a pair and move it himself. I would. And if some middle manager type threatened to "report me" I'd tell them to fuck off and do it and leave me alone to get some work done.

      It's funny, whenever there's a rule that would prevent a public sector employee from actually getting some work done, it gets followed to the letter every time. But expenses? Nah mate they're open to interpretation innit? Always okay to break THOSE rules.

      When the time comes to get some actual work done you'll find most public sector types quote mining the health and safety legislation for an easy way out. Then they'll complain that their annual pay rise wasn't enough while their private sector friends are lucky to still be earning the same pay they made 5 years ago.

  22. whaleboy7
    Unhappy

    the private sector will save us all...No really it will..

    If you think the private sector is going create social workers, speech therapists, occupational therapists etc to replace the 'Fat cat' NHS staff, Job centre, council workers on £30K a year you really must have been out smoking meth on your lunch break!

    The first things to go are community outreach services.

    Any of your kiddies have lisp, speak a bit funny? You'll either have to go private because if not you will need to join a waiting list that means they will not get seen for a long, long time and most likely be stuck for life with a Ross R or similar.

    Baby P? Plenty more of them waiting to come out and when you have even less staff then there less chance of managing the situation.

    What's that you say, the NHS is protected?

    Ha ha ha... you've been duped by wax face Dave and simple George. It's not just the NHS that funds these area....

    Want to send your kids to Uni..think again. Top fees will mean you need to fund them or your kids will graduate with debts of over 25k..It'll be here before the end of this parliament.

    But it’s ok, the private sector will save us...they did that last time didn't they? Why don't we put all our faith in Financail Services...Cleverest people, best pay, highest profits,.What could go wrong?

  23. Tom 13

    The double dip is headed our way all over the world.

    Both the British and American governments have been padding their payrolls for the last 60 years at the expense of the private sector. During Brown and Bush the rate accelerated greatly. Obama more than doubled down on Bush's rate of acceleration. That might get a little breaking in November, but certainly no reversal.

    Neither government can create private sector jobs, but both of them can and have been killing them. The pain of reigning it all in will be high, but stable sustainable private sector employment on the other side will be well worth it. If we can just get our governments to do the right thing for a change.

  24. NoSh*tSherlock!
    Alert

    Does this make sense??

    So there will be a loss of 600,000 jobs in the public sector - right?

    That means we will be borrowing less and paying less interest - right?

    so we borrow from banks and pay interest to banks - right?

    and by doing this the UK will be worse off?

    we will have lower growth than under labour ? how is that possible - if you add in the borrowing Labour had the worst destruction of value in UK history.

    alternative - we pay to keep another 600,000 public sector jobs - to do what exactly?

    SERVICES! you say? I cannot bloody afford those services.

    secondly providing services will definitely not give the UK growth.

    every sensible person who does not have their hand out knows this:-

    I cannot spend money I do not have or I will be worse off later.

    Gordon did for years and it is now later.

  25. John Square
    FAIL

    Guido said it better...

    Aside from the above discussion of equally valid headlines ("budget to create 1.3m jobs" etc, plus caveats as pointed out above), Fawkes at order-order.com notes the following:

    [quote]What is obvious to everyone is that the bloated public sector payroll is going to fall and a recovering private sector is expected to take up the slack. Larry (editor of Guardian) has managed to set the news agenda today only by ignoring the whole story. The loss making Guardian is of course the house-paper of the public sector, with pages full of advertisements for non-jobs.

    The Guardian’s advertising revenues will be hit incredibly hard, to the tune of hundreds of millions pounds, by the public sector hiring freeze and the coming shift of public sector job advertising from their printed pages onto jobs.gov.uk.

    A cynic might wonder if that perhaps helps to explain the paper’s editorial stance…[/quote]

    Shame on ElReg for not at least examining the source and it's motives....

    1. whaleboy7
      FAIL

      And the source is...

      Although the Guardin printed the story, the source is the Government's own report from their newly formed Office for Budget responsibility. It's now also being carried by the BBC too.

      1. John Square
        FAIL

        Actually...

        ... I know where the figures came from, as I read the story. I was referring to the bias in the presentation of the figures. I thought that my comment made that clear.

        Either way, it's good news all round: State to shrink, wealth producing part of economy to grow.

        Only question I have is: why only 1.2 million jobs?

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  27. Anomalous Cowturd
    Black Helicopters

    When I were a lad,

    double dipping was something a gentleman just did not do.

    Helicopter, because it looks like a lady's down belows if you squint!

  28. JohnG

    Public sector v. Private sector

    Where does the that pays for the public sector come from? Taxes. It stands to reason that the more public sector jobs you create, the more taxes are needed to fund them. If the public sector is not to act like a huge fucking parasite, the private sector needs to grow to a point where the public sector can be paid without bleeding the private sector to death. If like the last government, you address unemployment by creating public sector jobs, then you end up with ridiculous levels of public spending which has to be dealt with while the interest rates are still low if the country isn't going to be bled dry simply by the interest payments on former spending.

  29. Jim Birch

    Oh dear...

    Suddenly everyone is an economics professor sprouting zombie zero-sum linear economic theories that might be able to run a pie cart.

  30. Chief sub

    What the Guardian missed

    Since the figures for 1.3 million jobs lost in the public sector and the 2.5 million jobs gained in the private sector come from the same source - the OBR - why did the Guardian give heaps of weight to one and lightly dismiss the other?

    What is also not mentioned is that the Emergency Budget cut corporate tax rates, thereby attracting investment which will, more likely than not, create jobs (in the private sector).

    And where are either facts or informed opinion to back up John Oates' throwaway claim that "the prospect of a double-dip recession seems a real possibility"?

    I don't understand why The Reg just churned out the Guardian story without running it by someone knowledgeable who might have a worthwhile comment on it. Have you lost Worstall's email addy?

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