2,570,000: it’s not just a number

by Peter Watt

The trouble with statistics about people is that they dehumanise. The story of one human tragedy can move people by bringing to life the impact. But repeat that tragedy over and over and eventually it ceases to shock. Just think about how often in war it is the image or story of one tragic fatality that moves people, while statistics of the thousands who die passes us by.

I was thinking about this when I heard this week’s truly terrible unemployment figures. There are currently 2,570,000 people unemployed in the UK. This includes 991,000 16 – 24 year olds. This represents over 20% of young people who currently do not have a job.

The problem is that this figure has been creeping up slowly. However big it is, however shocking right now, it will inevitably numb the senses to the underlying tragedies that are unfolding across the country. It may have already done so. I remember when unemployment was creeping up to record highs in the 1980’s and the nightly news carried stories of the latest series of job losses around the country. Maps of the UK were used to illustrate the numbers of those set to join the lengthening dole queue. At first it was shocking, but it soon became background music. We just became immune to the scale of the numbers.

And it is happening again. There are, rightly, big arguments about why this is happening. Personally, I think that it is crass for Labour to try and blame the rise entirely on the Tories. However it is also disingenuous for the Tories to throw all of the blame at Labour. But, in all of this argument, we are in danger of losing our sense of the people who are affected.

Behind the figures for youth unemployment are young people who have never worked. Young people, whose lives revolve around claiming benefits and doing nothing. Who have never experienced the discipline and routine of getting to work, deadlines and authority. Instead of planning for a future they are getting through today and then tomorrow. The heady promise of a bright future from those still recent school days has been forgotten. And for far too many, a career of unemployment has begun that will be harder and harder to shake the longer the career lasts.

Behind the figures are families, who have worked hard to get what they have, who are suddenly facing ruin. They can’t pay the mortgage. Choices have to be made between school trips and new shoes. The TV package is cut. The planned holiday is cancelled and the weekly evening out is no longer an option. Hope for the future, has been replaced with fear of losing the family home and of debt collectors. And, of course, the shame of not having enough, and of not being able to provide for the family.

Behind the figures are proud men and women who have worked for over 30 years, whose families have grown and moved on. They were looking forward to enjoying the fruits of their labour. At the tail end of their working lives, when their earning power was at its greatest, they looked forward to long weekends away, more expensive holidays and the odd luxury. And instead they face the prospect of loss of status, being too old to start again and indefinite unemployment. The pension pot is not big enough and an old age of struggle looks a distinct possibility.

Behind the figures are social drinkers who will become dependent drinkers. People who consider suicide, and tragically, people who kill themselves.  Families who can’t take the strain and break-up. Children whose lives will be turned upside down. Some will suffer stress related cardio-vascular disease. And countless people will suffer an unquantifiable level of worry about how they will cope.   And many, still in work, will look on and think “there by the grace of God”.

But the unemployed will remain a minority; albeit a sizeable one. Most people will still be working, even if their incomes and living standards are being squeezed. The figures of millions of people on the dole will become just that: figures and numbers.

And in the background, politics will go about its business. Will Liam Fox resign or not? Smiles all round as the press get their comeuppance at the Leveson enquiry. And each week, like clockwork, will bring the baying at PMQs.

Blame will be thrown and the right noises made. People will march, concern will be expressed and photo opportunities will prove how much we care. But the cycle will move on and “unemployment” will become just a word. The economy will turn and the rate will drop back. There will be a fight over who should take credit and who should be trusted to be the custodians of the future. And the misery and tragedy will be forgotten.

Except by those who experienced it.

Peter Watt is a former general secretary of the Labour party.


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7 Responses to “2,570,000: it’s not just a number”

  1. Nick says:

    Behind the figures are families, who have worked hard to get what they have, who are suddenly facing ruin. They can’t pay the mortgage. Choices have to be made between school trips and new shoes. The TV package is cut. The planned holiday is cancelled and the weekly evening out is no longer an option. Hope for the future, has been replaced with fear of losing the family home and of debt collectors. And, of course, the shame of not having enough, and of not being able to provide for the family.

    They should go for growth, and that means carrying on spending. So they should max out on their credit cards, and spend spend spend.

    Isn’t that Labour policy? Borrow and binge. After all, who ever pays back their debts.

    That brings it into focus. Your and the Condem’s policy is for these victims to be forced to borrow billions and then you can spend it. However, they aren’t being told of the consequences, which is that they will be even more impoverished in the future, because you have to pay the cash back, plus all the interest.

    Government is the problem, not the solution.

    With the true government debt at 7,000 bn, when you include the Maddoff’ed debts fraudulently hidden off the books, how is the average tax payer going to pay back the 225,000 you’ve run up in debts that they have to pay?

  2. swatantra says:

    This is Real Politiks from an ex-Gen Sec of the Party.
    And Peter is abslutely right. Just like ‘the poor will always be with us’, so will the ‘unemployed’ because the nature of work is changing: there are no jobs for life; the work life balance is fragmented and fractured. All the Parties have to take cognisance of this change in society. I think the picyure in 2020 will be fundamentally different, and people are going to have to cope with ‘enforced leisure’ Govt has to accept the revolution in work that is coming and prepare us for it.

  3. The Future says:

    This is a good article Peter.

    But doesn’t the logic of it suggest that our own internal goldfish bowl mentality of focusing on minute details of Ed Miliband (see Labour Uncut Ad nauseam) show just how irrelevant it all is to the public. And that by doing this we are really actually failing them as an opposition?

    Far better that as a party we focus on the issues you raised. Than focusing on how a sub sample of an unweighted poll can be used to fit an anti leader agenda.

    But well done, maybe even Dan Hodges will write a different article to the one he recycles all the time.

    We can but hope.

  4. Cat says:

    So, basically you feel their pain, etc but the unemployed can suck it up.

    “there by the grace of God”

    LOL!!!

  5. AnneJGP says:

    I have often wondered whether we wouldn’t do better to start looking for “appropriate technology” that still leaves work for people to do, rather than automatically adopting any technology that replaces people altogether.

  6. swatantra says:

    A lot of factories only require about half a dozen people to keep them running, and maybe a score of people everynow and again to maintain the machinery. The rest is all automated. It would be good to build into the production line more human involvement. Perhaps the Green Industries may be able to do that. Humans require activity, real not virtual, to keep them in trim otherwise the race will become extinct.

  7. AnneJGP says:

    Donkeys’ years ago I worked on the automation of railway signalling. It troubled me a lot that there were all these skilled workers with extremely responsible jobs at signal boxes up & down the tracks who would be out of work when the automation was complete.

    I’d like to see a thorough investigation into the effects of such things, assessing all the costs involved, not just the immediate financial impact. Have these things really benefited society? Are things really better afterwards? E.g. in the instance I gave, are the railways safer now there is less human involvement?

    I do believe it would be possible to put some of these things into reverse: to utilise technology in such a way as to leave space for worthwhile work. It’s a huge undertaking though, and the preliminary investigations would be immense.

    swatantra may well be right about the Green Industries – they are likely to be the only organisations with the ethos required to pioneer such things. Didn’t wealthy Quaker familes do a lot to pioneer reasonable working conditions in factories, based on their religious ethos?

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