Unemployment Up

Guernsey Unemploment is now 447 and rising...

With 300 youngsters who are unsuitable for employment, and no doubt a few older ones too, the actual number of jobseekers must be around 100.

Spirit wrote:With 300 youngsters who are unsuitable for employment, and no doubt a few older ones too, the actual number of jobseekers must be around 100.

very good point spirit

Are Social Security actively helping with finding jobs and placing unemployed people with job vacancies? Does anyone know?








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was chatting to someone tonight who had been at the unemployment office for nearly five hours today.she was trying to sort out her benefits.

maybe we should put up job notices we see in shop windows.

barretts are looking for management staff
creaseys were looking for someone for the benefit makeup franchise

B&Q have loads of vacancies, as always.

Without being rude Dave, once again you demonstrate that you do not investigate matters thoroughly, you appear to have simply taken this tripe at face value.

40 million multiplied by 1 million is 40 trillion. Where have you seen that the US bail-out is going to cost $40 trillion?

Still, I suppose it suits you to concentrate on rubbish like this instead of addressing our own unemployment problem, which is only going to get worse. Who would bet against 1,000 being unemployed by the end of 2009? Not me, that's for sure..........

I think 2000 maybe more realistic

I dont know why people think that politicians should not have either a sence of humour or a little light banter without jumping all over them, I for one thought it was an light hearted and interesting proposal even though not really practical.

Many a true word is said in jest Dave :-)

Did they have any good ideas on how to keep pensioners afloat with the savings rates down to just above 0% and the cost of living rocketing......If it's a similar offer - I'll take the money please :-)

Perhaps a report could be commissioned into the local unemployment problem eh Dave? And then you could phone Radio Guernsey up to trash the findings just like you did with the recent Tribal Helm report.

I have not suggested that you are personally responsible for the unemployment problem (that's you being over-sensitive again), what I am suggesting is that the States deal with the problems that face the island in an honest manner, rather than trying to put an unrealistic spin on things. Whether it's Trott being ridiculously over-optimistic about growth, or McNulty-Bauer trying to play down the unemployment problem, or you discrediting the Tribal Helm report, there's far too much waffle and hot air and not enough action. I know there's a saying that states "Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public" but we're not all idiots you know, and we don't appreciate being treated as such.

There you go again, I did not “trash” the Tribal Helm report, I pointed out that they had arrived at some of their conclusions by comparing us I believe with what happens in the UK. First of all some of the things Tribal Helm believe are wasteful are in fact necessary for a small community such as ours, I will give you some examples. One of the things that they have picked on for instance is the fact that we have more public toilets than London, they are referring to all the public toilets we have around the coast, they of course have no idea the number of people who use our beaches and coastal paths all year round and who use these facilities regularly. They also do not believe the Buses should receive a subsidy from the taxpayer, The states disagrees and we are trying by this subsidy to encourage more use of the public transport system and in any event they have got that wrong because the bus subsidy will now come from general revenue funded by fuel tax.



One other thing they say we should get rid of is the subsidy we give to our farmers, the few farmers we have left look after hundreds of vergees of farm land, protect one of the premier breeds of cattle in the world and produce some of the best quality milk on the planet and unlike British farmers they don’t receive any money from the EU, so of course we subsidise our Guernsey farms.



Like all UK consultants that come to Guernsey they will inevitably put a UK comparison on everything. Guernsey is different in so many ways, we for instance have to supply all the services of a small independent country, and we don’t have another county up the road who we can call on for help. One example would be Le Rondin School no UK local authority would have spent the millions that school cost for a community of 60,000. We did and I am proud we did, simply because we are an island and have to provide special needs education here, we don’t have the luxury of sending children to another school 20 miles away. We also have to provide most of our facilities without getting the benefit of economies of scale. Unlike the UK, Guernsey has always put services before the bottom line on a balance sheet, that was because in the past we could afford to do so, and while I accept that is no longer the case and there are areas where we need to save money we will still have to provide the best we can for our people. However and of huge importance, we have no debt and while all these people come here and tell us how bad we are doing, when you compare us to the country these advisers come from, there is simply no comparison, our public services are some of the finest in the world, we have a very stable economy not as yet suffering the same depression of the rest of Europe, a first class education system and the highest home ownership anywhere in western Europe. A pension pot unheard of in most jurisdictions, comparatively low taxes and charges and a high wage level for the majority of our people employed. Just compare that to the UK who are currently the basket case of Europe, they are billions of pounds in debt, have massive unemployment, an un affordable benefit system together with colossal amounts of benefit fraud, their public services are in meltdown with their people some of the highest taxed in the world, their immigration is out of control and many of their cities are becoming the crime capitols of Europe and now the disgusting spectacle of pensioners going to prison because they can’t afford to pay their council tax, all this and a criminal justice system that fails thousands of people every day so you will forgive me, if as one of your elected deputies put Guernsey’s interests slightly above the unconvincing advice of a group of UK consultants. One of Tribal Helms proudest boasts at the presentations I have attended is that they also advise the British government well given the state of the UK at the moment I would like to suggest that even with all our faults we do things here considerably better.



As one other Vale Deputy said to me last week, when you go around the island and see what we have and how we do it, you don’t get the feeling that we should be holding up the UK as a the model we ought to be following. That doesn’t mean that there are not parts of this report that we could adopt in terms of procurement of goods or areas of government that could not be privatised which would produce savings, although my experience is that commercialisation and privatisation inevitably leads to higher charges to our people.



So let’s see what the details are in the next round before we all get too excited we live in a great place, with resilient people and a great future for our children and grandchildren there is so much we have to be grateful for and we will come through this downturn. I believe passionately that Guernsey will be back in the black in the not to distant future, if you believe the journal of doom the Guernsey Press, then we might as well all go and drip our wrists into a sink. I don’t believe that, and I cannot find many other deputies who believe that either but as the editor of the press would like to run the island by cabinet government it is not hard to see where they are coming from.



If we are going to have a really critical review of government spending in Guernsey then give the job to someone like Mary Perkins and her financial team at Specsavers people who understand the Guernsey is different and may well be not as efficient as some other places simply because we prefer the quality of our Island life above everything else, or we could any number of other local companies that could take a critical look at us. Let’s use people who are on the island and who have Guernsey’s best interests at heart. I think having a close look at where we can make savings is healthy in any democracy and I certainly don’t believe that we should be going back to the Guernsey people for more and more tax revenue until the government has got its spending under control. Having said that I know which country I prefer to live in. The States on occasions do need a swift kick up the backside from time to time but let’s just honour all the things we have and the level of service that the states delivers across the island. Get rid of all these consultants and use our own local expertise to identify areas where we can save money that is the real solution to our problem of government spending.

Dave

I agree with what a lot of what you say, I am a Guernseyman who has lived in the a few different countries (only for a couple of years at a time) and I can't ever imagine moving away from the island for good, largely due to our standard of living and the overall quality of life. The point I was trying to make is that everything in our garden is not currently rosy, and it annoys me when politicians try to give the impression that it is. The worst example of this kind of spinning is none other than Deputy Trott. First of all his predictions for growth at the time of the zero-10 debate were ridiculous. I was in favour of zero-10, don't get me wrong, but making outlandish predictions will at some time come back to bite you on the backside, unless of course you subsequently blame everything on the world economy. What will be his excuse when his recent estimate for growth turns out to be wildly erroneous? He reminds me of Gordon Brown as Chancellor, his predictions for growth were frequently vastly exaggerated and his predictions for deficits/borrowing requirements were often considerably less than they ought to have been. Honesty, rather than telling people what you think they want to hear, is the best policy. At least people will not then be too disappointed in the future.

One point I must pick up is the one about "Guernsey has always put services before the bottom line on a balance sheet". I don't think that's fair when you look at the state of our mental health services, or indeed education. It has been known for many years about the Castel Hospital / Les Beaucamps / La Mare de Carteret being in need of significant refurbishment or demolition, yet it is only now that firm plans appear to be being made.

Good post Dave !!

Here Here!

Very fair points Dave, but it's hard to argue that we always put public services before the bottom line on a balance sheet when considering the failings that have occurred in these areas.

Your point about the new court building is particularly valid in my opinion. It must be the most expensive building (in terms of cost versus usable square footage) in the history of the island, and all to massage the already inflated egos of the legal industry.

Dave Jones wrote:One point I must pick up is the one about "Guernsey has always put services before the bottom line on a balance sheet". I don't think that's fair when you look at the state of our mental health services, or indeed education. It has been known for many years about the Castel Hospital / Les Beaucamps / La Mare de Carteret being in need of significant refurbishment or demolition, yet it is only now that firm plans appear to be being made.

On this point you have to blame the departments who have been allowed to draw up their own priority programme's, lets just take health first, if as we are constantly being told that Mental Health has been a top priority for 25 years which was the last figure I heard in the States, then why has our health department spent millions on other projects before addressing this most important issue? They can’t argue they haven’t had the money, Health has had the best part of 100 million over the last ten years for capital projects on top of an annual budget of about 80 million a year, so it is clear that those with mental health problems have been let down by the very department that is responsible for their welfare.

Education is exactly the same, while they were spending millions on a performing arts centre that we could all of lived without for a while, Les Beaucamps / La Mare de Carteret were in dire need of serious repair or replacement. The worst offenders were the old board of Admin who spent millions on new airport buildings when it should have gone on the runway, millions on a new court building I don’t think were necessary and wasted millions in overspends on almost everything.

So what you're saying, Dave Jones, is that Guernsey HASN'T always put services before the bottom line on the balance sheet, regardless which individuals or departments are to blame.

Is that the same line on the balance sheet where the now GHA controlled housing used to be?

Still well below the accepted ideal level. I still can't get staff and I know of plenty of other businesses in the same position.

You would expect a reduction as some seasonal staff will have been taken on so a drop of 24 is probably an increase in real long term employment terms

Strange how none of them were interested in my vacancies.

Unemployment up from last month, and 165 up on last year.

And this is the best time of the year to get employed!

What will the winter months bring....

Swine flu?

already here spirit lol