Gideon Oliver Osborne Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury
How can you tell if the economy is improving? Well this is the big question at the moment, since the country has been in austerity drive for the last 5 years. According to figures published by massive economic organisations that are well paid to do these things, the economy has bounced back. However, the figures also show that the people who are actually benefiting from the recovery are those that are near the quantitative easing Christmas tree, ie those that had money chucked at them by the central bank/s.
Those that are further down the food chain of power have only press reports and crumbs of the top table to digest and therefore the constant feeling that the economy is not working for them. The one thing that can be sure about is the spin is having an effect.
Since the election for the UK government is near, the government has been spinning and promoting that things are getting better, and, this is convincing people who may not have this message reflected in their pay packet. But, the demands for a wage rise is growing and people are less likely to take any job that is not giving them employment protection – why should they?
For employers especially small businesses this is a problem. With employment regulations you are given the option of good pay with strong incentives for the employee or zero hours contracts which mean you only get desperate employees. Why would anyone go on a zero hour contract unless they have no where else to go for income?
Therefore this is an opportunity for trade unions to rabble rouse and get rid of these pernicious zero hours contracts for stable jobs. However, Mr Osborne will fight against this as zero hours contracts are the best thing for capitalism since the destruction of communism.
So yes the economy is working, but not for all interested parties, just yet!