A Strange Sort Of Recovery

Politicians and the national media proclaim it in banner headlines. Britain is on the road to an economic recovery. The Office for National Statistics said  that employment figures had surged by 345,000, the largest quarterly rise since records began in 1971 and drove unemployment down to a five-year low. There is one aspect of this surge in employment figures that politicians are a little less likely to boast about though. 'However, pay fell below inflation. Average annual wage growth dropped to 0.7 per cent in the three months to April, less than half the 1.8 per cent rate at which prices are rising.' (Times, 12 June) It is an economic recovery for the owning class. More workers to exploit, less unemployment money to fork out - but for the working class it is a drop in real wages. RD