Government portrayal of supposed fall in unemployment defies reality

 

Statement of Stefanos Stefanou, AKEL Political Bureau member

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 28th September 2015, Nicosia

 

The government is celebrating about a supposed reduction in the number of the unemployed. The government’s tactics of playing games with numbers in order to portray a false picture and celebrating on people’s misery is well known.

Unfortunately, we do not have a fall in unemployment. Traditionally during the second quarter of a year there is a reduction in unemployment due to the tourist industry in the summer months.

The comparison of the numbers of unemployed must be made with the corresponding period last year. This comparison illustrates that unemployment fell by just 0.7%, despite the fact that thousands of Cypriots have emigrated abroad, a great number of Community and third country nationals have left Cyprus and despite the fact that many of our young people, who have completed their studies, do not return because of the lack of prospects of finding a job.

In fact, unemployment has not been reduced. Quite the reverse is true! This is even more so the case as the quality indexes of unemployment demonstrates a deterioration of the problem, since the number of long-term unemployed is increasing – two in three are unemployed for more than a period of six months and youth unemployment has exceeded 30%. This proves that the austerity policy being implemented is recycling the problems and offers no way out of this vicious circle. It is imperative that the government must at last invest in growth which creates jobs.

However, for the government and ruling forces this is all irrelevant. For them what comes first is portraying a false misleading picture of the real situation and not the solution of the problems faced by citizens and society.