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More jobs and better jobs were created in the five years since 1997 compared to the previous five years, long-term unemployment fell steeply, and excluded workers have been brought back into work according to a TUC report. Workers are also better off as wages have grown faster since 1997 and the gap between public and private sector pay has closed significantly. The report contradicts the warnings that Labour’s welfare and employee rights policies would lead to job losses by showing that the labour market in the five years since 1997 outperformed the previous five years on almost all measures. Since 1997 Labour have introduced the National Minimum Wage, stronger employment protection, a new right to trade union recognition and tax-benefit reform to make work pay. The biggest single weakness in the job market has been the almost continuous shedding of manufacturing jobs. Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary, said: 'The scare-mongerers were wrong about new employee protections and welfare reform costing jobs. We are now closer to full employment than at any other point in the last 25 years. Things have got better under Labour. 'The challenges ahead are kick-starting the manufacturing sector and closing the gap in wages between men and women and the high and low paid.' ‘Things have got better’ - the facts: Between 1992 and 1997 740,000 more jobs were created, compared with 1,290,000 between 1997 and 2002. In other words, 74 per cent more jobs were created in the five years since 1997 compared with the previous five years. Most of the jobs created between 1992 and 1997 were temporary and part time. The jobs created since 1997 have been permanent, nearly two-thirds of them full time. Since 1997 there has been a sharp fall in the number of people taking temporary and part time work because they could not find permanent work. Unemployment has fallen significantly since 1997, from 7.2 per cent to 5.1 per cent in Spring 2002. The actual number unemployed fell by just over 500,000 or nearly 26 per cent. Long-term unemployment fell slowly before 1997 but in the five years since 1997 the number of people out of work for more than twelve months has halved. The New Deal’s targeting of long-term unemployment has seen it fall faster than unemployment as a whole since 1997. Public sector employment has grown faster than private sector employment since 1997, but almost three-quarters of the jobs created were in the private sector. Since 1997 fewer people are working in either very long hour (over 45 hours) or very short-term hour jobs (under 16 hours). All the increase in jobs has been in middle range part time and full time jobs involving usual weekly hours of between 16 and 45 hours. Between 1992 and 1997 average earnings went up by 18 per cent compared with 25 per cent between 1997 and 2002. Public sector pay increased by 22 per cent between 1997 and 2002 an increase much closer to the private sector than the 12 per cent increase between 1992 and 1997. TUC Aug 8, 2003 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
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