Many, many job losses

There will be “many, many job losses”, said Boris Johnson at today’s COVID-19 press briefing. That is “inevitable.” Then Johnson started lying again by saying no country had done more than the UK. In the G7, few have done less, but let’s not allow facts to get in the way of more Johnson bullshit. We should, I suppose, be grateful that at least he’s talking about it and not before time.

Three days into summer, although it feels suspiciously like autumn, and everything still feels a bit weird. After over two months of the government’s semi-lockdown, some things are returning to a sort of new normal. Flatpack furniture shops and garden centres are opening up again and some schools are part opening. As we frequently note, people have still got money and many are using it to pay off that credit card. Some eight million people are furloughed and the feeling throughout the impossibly sunny spring was that we’d all be back to work soon. We would “bounce back” soon enough. Cue Boris Johnson breaking a lifetime’s habit and telling the truth.

It doesn’t feel much like an economic recession, does it? We don’t know that many people who have lost their jobs, unless we are the people who have lost their jobs. These so called experts, they talk in an alien language. And anyway, the sun is shining.

Johnson’s “many, many jobs” will disappear in many sectors. In shops, in factories, small businesses – it will be an endless game of falling dominoes. In hospitality, we have already seen the beginning of the end of countless popular eateries. Not far from me in Cribbs Causeway, it seems that all that will be left is Burger King and KFC. Many pubs will not survive, even if they manage to reopen with vastly reduced customer capacity. Jobs go in one sector, they go in another. Supply lines will be affected, people who become unemployed won’t buy stuff and so it goes on. I remember the 1980s. This will be infinitely worse.

Jobcentres will be rammed with people who never thought in a million years they would be forced to sign on. “Is that all?” they will say, when they get their benefits. Where’s the life of Riley on benefits the Sun has been telling me about for years? And that high-skilled well paid job will be gone forever. “Have you ever thought of fruit-picking? You live on site seven days a week, pay for the caravan that has no electricity and pay for your own food, leaving you with barely £7 an hour. If you don’t take it, you’ll lose your benefits.” “Can’t you get some Eastern European to do it?” “No. They’re not allowed to come here anymore. They were taking your job.”

These “many, many job losses” Johnson talked about will see people losing their homes, families going on the street, children not getting fed. Those losing their jobs will be competing with this summer’s school leavers for what scraps are available. The kids are cheaper labour thanks to the tiered Minimum Wage. “Give that kid a job. Sorry, mate. You’d cost too much.”

We will have even more to worry about soon. Not just a deadly virus for which there is no cure. A massive recession, perhaps even a great depression. Johnson admitted as much. He offered guaranteed apprenticeships for young people, but who with? Employers on their way to bankruptcy? Employers just about surviving by imposing job and pay cuts?

Now, Johnson needs to level with us. Just how bad is this recession going to be? What are you and your shit thick government going to do to prepare us for it? How’s the levelling up going, by the way?