Toggle high contrast
Issue date
• TUC report sets out plan to invest for growth so jobs can be protected and created
• Union body calls for radical investment in green projects such as new tram systems, a franchised bus network, and a union backed retraining programme
• New TUC analysis shows breakdown of employment risk for local authorities in Yorkshire & Humber
• Three quarters of a million Yorkshire workers on furlough scheme

New TUC report ‘A better recovery for Yorkshire’ (published today, Monday) sets out a plan to prevent mass unemployment following the pandemic, with secure jobs and decent pay for working families.

Unemployment risk in Yorkshire & the Humber

The TUC warns that there is a high risk of mass unemployment in Yorkshire without a recovery plan centred on protecting and creating jobs, backed by major investment.

Workers who have required support from the job retention scheme and self-employed income support scheme are most likely to face unemployment risks in the months ahead.

In the region, TUC analysis estimates that at least 775,600 workers (30% of the workforce) have required support from these schemes. The local authorities in the region with the highest proportion of workers seeking support through these schemes are Craven (41% of workers), Scarborough (38%), Selby and Ryedale (both 34%).

On top of these figures, there will be many other people who have been laid off, or who entered the employment market during the crisis, and have been unable to find work.

And the union body says economic uncertainty will affect all industries, so there will be pressure on the jobs of many workers who have not been furloughed too.

A plan to get Yorkshire growing out of the crisis – and stop mass unemployment

The pandemic alone did not cause the current crisis. It was made worse by a decade of austerity and failure to strengthen Yorkshire & the Humber’s economy, says the TUC.

Choosing the wrong approach now risks embedding low growth, long-term unemployment and all the social ills that go alongside.

The report recommends an approach based on recently published TUC research (see notes), which found that the fastest recoveries from economic crises in UK history were based on investment for growth.

An investment for growth approach must be resourced by central government, and will need action at regional level in five key areas:

  1. Make Yorkshire a Fair Work Region: Combined authorities, local councils and local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) should work in partnership with unions and business to:
    • Secure investment for local infrastructure needs
    • Establish a Fair Work Charter that sets conditions for business support funding such as: paying the Real Living Wage, giving unions access to the workplace, working with union health & safety reps to make the workplace safe
    • Use progressive procurement and commissioning to support regional jobs, businesses and economy growth
    • Embed social partnership between local government, unions and business by metro mayor, CA and LA convened economic recovery forums.
    • Develop a regional-level green industrial strategy that builds on the region’s strengths to meet climate targets
    • Rebuilding public services: Combined Authorities and local authorities should adopt a policy of managing all services in-house by default, so they can raise employment and delivery standards, and strengthen the resilience of essential services such as social care.
  2. A worker centred transition to a low carbon economy: through a regional Just Transition Commission to coordinate investment, learning skills agenda, a ReAct style redundancy response programme, procurement rules to support local manufacturing, and regional leadership on the COP targets;
  3. A 21st century public transport network for Yorkshire: led by investment in mass transit systems for our city regions, public control of our buses, local procurement for low carbon vehicles, and reimagining our travel modes to Europe through night trains and sea links;
  4. An equal and racially just recovery: led by new rules on procurement & commissioning, equality and racial justice scrutiny boards for local authorities; and support for power, privilege and discrimination training for businesses and the wider workforce;
  5. Find Yorkshire’s new place in the world: through building our relationships with our border regions, a rights-based approach to newly devolved trade powers, and establishing an independent presence for our region in Brussels.

These priorities complement the national priorities that we have already published in the TUC’s national recovery plan (see the notes below).

Local leadership and workers’ voices

The report calls for the formation of a Yorkshire & Humber regional recovery panel with representation from unions, employers, Job Centre Plus, relevant civic partners and local and regional government.

Regional panels would work in tandem with a UK National Recovery Panel to turn headline objectives into tailored strategies for each region.

The TUC says that regional structures with devolved powers are essential to achieving the best recovery possible, because the nature and scale of the challenge varies greatly across different parts of the UK.

In Yorkshire & the Humber, the union body is calling for regional leaders to prioritise:

  • Creating a Fair Work Charter, which commits employers who receive business support funding to implement fair pay, union access to workplaces, and worker voice;
  • infrastructure spending, such as mass transit/tram networks, to generate high skilled, green jobs;
  • bringing bus services back into public control, to allow proper planning of networks and give more reliable access to job opportunities;
  • A Wales style redundancy and retraining programme (see recommendation 2.d), to intervene before unemployment hits, and provide retrained, skilled workers for recovering industries in the green economy;
  • supporting local manufacturers to produce more locally, by commissioning locally and coordinating business investment through the LEPs;
  • Shielding our culture, leisure and tourism industries, through this crisis, and working closely with unions to instil public confidence in safety practices
  • Convening regional recovery boards, that bring together local government, unions and business on a long term footing, to plan a fair and sustainable recovery.

Both the regional and national bodies should have worker representation so that workers’ voices are at the heart of decision-making for recovery plans.

TUC Regional Secretary Bill Adams said:

“People are very worried about their jobs. Many have been laid off already. Losing your job is a dreadful experience – devastating for families. And if we allow mass unemployment to take hold, our economy will be smaller, and the recovery from the pandemic will be slower.

“That’s why good jobs are at the heart of our recovery plan for Yorkshire & the Humber.

“We are calling for regional leaders to identify big, spade ready public works projects, such as the new mass transit metro for West Yorkshire; ramp up local manufacturing for the North Sea wind farm; support rail engineering in Doncaster and Goole; and commission new fleets of green buses from our local factories in North Yorkshire.

“Yorkshire can lead the way in a green recovery, if regional leaders bring unions and business round the table to make a plan. We’re calling on Mayors and local authority leaders to convene a Just Transition Taskforce with unions and employers to coordinate infrastructure spending, skills training, and business investment.

“And we must value our public services in Yorkshire too. Our key workers kept us going through the crisis. But after ten years of cuts, it was much harder for them than it should have been. It’s time to rebuild local public services for the future.

“This week, we’re asking the Chancellor to put his faith in people in Yorkshire & the Humber with big and bold investment. If he backs us in this way, we can avoid mass unemployment, work our way to recovery and build back better.”

ENDS

Editors note

Notes to editors:

- Full report: The full report A Better Recovery for Yorkshire is here:
https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2020-07/A%20better%20recovery%20for%20Yorkshire.pdf

- Regional and local unemployment risk: See the report for the full data by local authority. The analysis is based on claims made of support through the job retention scheme and the self-employed income support scheme. The figures are likely to be an underestimate, as around a million claims have not been assigned a location.

- Mass unemployment: Analysis by the Office for Budget Responsibility suggests that the UK unemployment count could reach 3m people as a consequence of the coronavirus crisis https://obr.uk/coronavirus-analysis/

- Evidence in support of investment-led economic recovery: The TUC published research in May 2020 showing that the most successful economic recoveries in the last century of UK history have come from investment-led approaches.

The research compared government expenditure in the decades following significant economic shocks and downturns. It found that during periods like the post-war recovery (1947-57),  investment for growth paid for itself.

This is because millions of working families had higher disposable income through decent work, creating the economic demand needed for strong growth and healthy public finances. And investment in stronger public services meant an effective safety that supported people to start and grow businesses.

The following table summarises the analysis, with explanatory notes below.

 

Annual average

Percentage points of GDP

Rank

Decade

GDP growth, %

Of which government expenditure, ppts

Public debt at start of decade

Change in public debt

1

1931-41

4.5

9.9

181

-21

2

1947-57

3.3

0.5

244

-123

3

1991-2001

2.9

0.3

23

+6

4

1981-91

2.9

0.2

43

-19

5

1975-85

2.3

0.2

54

-15

6

1921-31

1.9

0.0

160

+20

7

2009-19

1.9

0.2

59

+22

Exposure to JRS/SEISS by LA

Eligible for SEISS

Claimed SEISS

In employment (16+)

JRS

Total JRS and SEISS

% of in employment on a scheme

% of in employment on JRS

% of in employment on SEISS

Yorkshire and the Humber

241,000

172,000

2579745

603,600

775,600

30

23

7

East Riding of Yorkshire UA

15,500

10,800

160415

37,800

48,600

30

24

7

Kingston upon Hull, City of (UA)

8,700

6,200

122877

31,900

38,100

31

26

5

North East Lincolnshire UA

5,100

3,600

69893

17,200

20,800

30

25

5

North Lincolnshire UA

6,000

4,100

76939

18,100

22,200

29

24

5

York UA

8,400

6,200

110429

24,000

30,200

27

22

6

N. Yorkshire CC

35,800

24,700

295160

72,600

97,300

33

25

8

Craven

4,000

2,800

23531

6,900

9,700

41

29

12

Hambleton

5,400

3,600

44104

9,400

13,000

29

21

8

Harrogate

8,800

6,200

84150

19,000

25,200

30

23

7

Richmondshire

3,000

1,900

24148

5,400

7,300

30

22

8

Ryedale

4,000

2,700

27720

6,600

9,300

34

24

10

Scarborough

6,400

4,600

50648

14,500

19,100

38

29

9

Selby

4,300

3,000

40859

10,700

13,700

34

26

7

S. Yorks MC

59,700

44,100

661901

145,600

189,700

29

22

7

Barnsley

11,500

8,500

116239

27,400

35,900

31

24

7

Doncaster

13,000

9,300

139688

35,700

45,000

32

26

7

Rotherham

12,100

9,100

117006

29,100

38,200

33

25

8

Sheffield

23,100

17,100

288968

53,500

70,600

24

19

6

W. Yorks MC

101,400

72,500

1082131

256,300

328,800

30

24

7

Bradford

24,600

17,500

222729

53,900

71,400

32

24

8

Calderdale

9,800

7,000

98463

23,700

30,700

31

24

7

Kirklees

19,500

14,200

202276

50,400

64,600

32

25

7

Leeds

33,400

23,500

397829

88,200

111,700

28

22

6

Wakefield

14,100

10,300

160834

40,100

50,400

31

25

6

Notes and commentary:

  1. Table 1 compares economic recoveries over the past century, with outcomes measured over decades beginning at the trough of each recession. 1981-91 and 1975-85 are overlapping episodes, each marked by a separate period of recession at the outset.
  2. The analysis is based on the Bank of England historic data resource and latest ONS National Accounts and Public Sector Finance datasets; public sector debt figures exclude public sector banks.
  3. Figures show average annual growth for GDP and government consumption expenditure in real terms; the level of public debt as a share of GDP at the start of each recovery, and the change over the decade.
  4. The results show the best public sector finance outcomes coinciding with episodes when priority was given to strengthening social infrastructure and the economy, above all under the Attlee government after the Second World War. These outcomes (and those of the 1930s) reflected the hard-fought lessons of the 1920s and the great depression, Keynes’s work, the influence on the UK of Roosevelt’s New Deal and wider thinking in the UK to which trade unions made a major contribution.
  5. Over the 1947-57 recovery the 0.5 ppts per year contribution of government consumption to GDP growth was more than double the average across all other recoveries (excepting 1931-41, when the figures are distorted by spending ahead of the Second World War).  And GDP growth over the 1947-57 recovery was broad based, with strong (public and private) investment and exports significantly outstripping imports (the only recovery when this happened).
  6. In stark contrast are the outcomes of the 1920s and the last decade. In the 1920s, the ‘Geddes Axe’ cuts of the Conservative-Liberal coalition government implemented austerity. And in the last decade is was Osborne who wielded the axe as the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government implemented an austerity programme. It has been a hard way of rediscovering the lessons once learned after the 1920s.

- TUC UK national recovery plan: Our regional reports complement the national report that we published in May 2020. The key areas of action we have called for nationally are:

  1. Decent work and a new way of doing business: New business models based on fairer employment relationships and a greater share for workers of the wealth they create, including a higher minimum wage and new collective bargaining rights.
  2. Sustainable industry and a green economy: A programme to rebuild the UK’s industrial capacity with modern tech, creating over a million new jobs across the UK. And unemployment prevention through a job guarantee scheme and a fully-funded right to retrain in new skills. 
  3. A real safety net: Including reforming universal credit so it better supports working people, removing benefits conditionality, increasing the rate of statutory sick pay and  maintaining the state pension triple lock. 
  4. Rebuilding public services: Including pay rises for all public sector workers, a strategy to improve conditions for the social care workforce, sustainable funding settlements for the NHS, local government, education and other public services, and an end to outsourcing.
  5. Equality at work: Including a day one right to flexible working, stronger protections for pregnant workers and new mums, more funding for workplace disability support, and new requirements for action to achieve equality for BAME workers.

The full national report can be found here: https://www.tuc.org.uk/ABetterRecovery

- About the TUC: The Trades Union Congress (TUC) exists to make the working world a better place for everyone. We bring together more than 5.5 million working people who make up our 48 member unions. We support unions to grow and thrive, and we stand up for everyone who works for a living.

Contacts:

TUC press office 

For comment from TUC Regional Secretary Bill Adams, please contact Sonya Dennis
yhregsec@tuc.org.uk  
0113 200 1078

sdennis@tuc.org.uk
0113 242 9696

Urgent calls: 07867 788856

Enable Two-Factor Authentication

To access the admin area, you will need to setup two-factor authentication (TFA).

Setup now