Cuts and unemployment

Very revealing Treasury leak in today's Guardian on the impact cuts will have on unemployment.

They reveal that: "Unpublished estimates of the impact of the biggest squeeze on public spending since the second world war show that the government is expecting between 500,000 and 600,000 jobs to go in the public sector and between 600,000 and 700,000 to disappear in the private sector by 2015... A slide from the final version of a presentation for last week's budget, seen by the Guardian, says: '100-120,000 public sector jobs and 120-140,000 private sector jobs assumed to be lost per annum for five years through cuts."

This confirms the argument we and a growing number of economic commentators in Scotland have been making, that the private sector will be affected both through the loss of government contracts and from the knock-on impact of lower public spending. Our estimate of 0.75 private sector jobs for every 1 public sector job loss now appears to be an underestimate. The Treasury model clearly assumes at least 1 for 1, something that was previously described as 'scaremongering'.

Perhaps not surprisingly the Chancellor decided not to reveal these facts in this budget. Obviously 'openess and transparency' doesn't run to telling the real truth about the misery spending cuts will have on workers in the public and private sector.