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Rebuilding after recession: a plan for jobs

Report type
Research and reports
Issue date
Support those who lose their jobs to find work as fast as possible
Swift action to improve confidence in the economy can help to protect jobs. But many people have already lost work.

Official data on the number of employees on payrolls shows this fell by 600,000 between March and May 2020 [1] . During 13 March to 9 April, there were a record number of Universal Credit claims that led to 1.2 million new recipients. On 9th April 2020 there were 4.2 million people on Universal Credit, an increase of 40 per cent in one month compared with an average 4 per cent month-on-month increase between April 2019 and March 2020. [2]

TUC analysis shows that young people are particularly at risk of losing their jobs. Workers aged 25 and under are three times more likely to work in one of the two sectors where jobs are at greatest risk – accommodation and food, or arts, entertainment and recreation. Women workers aged 25 and under face the greatest risk of all. They are six times more likely than male workers over 25 to work in the highest risk sector, accommodation and food. [3] And as we set out further in the next section, groups who already face structural discrimination may face heightened risks: the unemployment rate for BME groups is 6.3 percent - twice as high as for white groups. [4]

These workers need urgent support to get back to work. And the social security system needs to be rebooted to protect their incomes and prevent a damaging spiral into debt.

Support to get back into work

As we set out in section one, government will need to invest in directly creating jobs, both in new infrastructure and through restoring our public services. Our analysis suggests that 1.24 million jobs could be created in the next two years through investment in vital infrastructure. And government should provide funding to significantly expand the social care workforce, guaranteeing the provision of hundreds of thousands of good quality jobs across the country, and to restore the local government workforce.

New forms of public provision could also provide jobs. For example, a coalition of charities have proposed a new ‘National Nature Service’ designed to level up access to nature and providing tens of thousands of jobs and potential training opportunities across the country.

Government must also invest in dedicated training and support schemes to help people access new jobs.

Government should fund a new jobs guarantee

The TUC set out our proposals for a new government funded Jobs Guarantee in May, [5] with early access to the scheme for young workers. The scheme should deliver jobs that:

  • are paid at least the real living wage rate, or the union negotiated rate for the job
  • ensure the worker gets the skills they need to move into permanent work, including the option for kickstarting an apprenticeship
  • are additional – this means the money should only be used to create jobs that would not have been created in the absence of a scheme, ensuring that job guarantee participants are not replacing existing workers
  • provide a community, public benefit and/or help to decarbonise the economy: the inclusion of a “community benefit” criteria was one of the clear successes attributed to the Future Jobs Fund, and so any similar scheme should adopt and widen this principle to explicitly include a contribution to public good, and/or decarbonising the economy
  • meet local labour market needs: this means the ability for the money to be used to create jobs in sectors which correspond with regional or local economic plans
  • seek to reduce labour market inequalities. Take-up by people with protected characteristics who face the greatest discrimination in the labour market must be monitored, and action taken to address any inequalities in access. The scheme must seek to support women who need access to childcare to enable them to work, support employers to make reasonable adjustments to enabled disabled workers to take up jobs and ensure in particular that BME workers have proportionate access to the scheme across local labour markets. Action taken during this period must aim to tackle persistent discrimination, not exacerbate it
  • ensure access to trade unions.

The jobs guarantee should be overseen by new regional recovery panels, bringing together unions, business and regional authorities to deliver jobs tailored to local needs.

As we set out above, government must ensure that part of its investment plan, both in infrastructure and across public services, goes to funding guaranteed jobs. Information about planned investment in their area must be given to regional recovery panels, who will be responsible for working with contractors, and across the public sector, to ensure that these are delivered.

Government should invest in rapid support for those losing work, and the ability to retrain

In addition to the devastating impact of the pandemic, we need to deal with long-standing skills challenges. Massive under-investment has left us with a legacy of poor productivity and entrenched barriers: government adult skills spending fell by 47 per cent in the last decade and the volume of employer-led training is down by a staggering 60 per cent since the end of the 1990s. And too many of our young people have been let down, e.g., almost 40 per cent of our 25-year-olds do not progress beyond a level 2 qualification (i.e. GCSE or vocational equivalent).

Alongside the Jobs Guarantee government should:

  • Introduce a new right to retrain for everybody, backed up by funding and personal lifelong learning accounts. This should involve bringing forward the £600m promised investment in a national skills fund, and accelerating the work of the national retraining partnership to ensure there is a gateway to new skills for everyone.
  • Offer an education and training guarantee for all school leavers and other young people aged 25 and under who wish to take up this option. This guarantee would include an apprenticeship, place at university or college, and other education and training options. In support of this the apprenticeship levy should be flexed to allow employers to use their funds to also provide pre-apprenticeship training programmes where appropriate.
  • Invest in rapid redundancy support for everyone at risk of losing their job, with companies required to notify regional recovery panels when they are consulting on redundancies, and jobcentre plus organising tailored on-site provision to offer rapid access to training and other support.

Support to protect incomes

The social security system should support those who do lose their jobs to stay on their feet, and not face a damaging spiral into debt. Government must:

  • Raise the basic level of universal credit and legacy benefits, including jobs seekers allowance and employment and support allowance, to at least 80 per cent of the national living wage (£260 per week).
  • End the five-week wait for first payment of universal credit by converting emergency payment loans to grants.
  • Remove the savings rules in universal credit to allow more people to access it.
  • Significantly increase child benefit payments and remove the two-child limit within universal credit and working tax credit.
  • Ensure no-one loses out on any increases in social security by removing the arbitrary benefit cap. In addition, no one on legacy benefits should lose the protection of the managed transition to universal credit as part of this change.
  • Introduce a wider package of support for households, by introducing a fully funded council tax freeze, significantly increasing the hardship fund delivered by local authorities and moving swiftly to introduce a permanent fund that provides a permanent source of grants to support those facing hardship. Government must also increase the support it provides to renters.
  • Scrap the no-recourse-to-public-funds rules that deny working families access to social security.
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