The Workers’ Party have reacted sharply to the latest unemployment figures released today which show a net increase of almost 20,000 in the number of people unemployed during the month of June.

Workers Party President Michael Finnegan said that the upward trend in unemployment figures, coupled with this week’s exchequer shortfall figures contradict the government’s line that there is no crisis. 

“This is certainly a crisis for those people who have lost their jobs over the past few months and for the many thousands more who face uncertainty over the future of their jobs.  It is also clearly a crisis for those who have run into difficulty with their mortgages and who feel their family finances severely pinched by the spiralling price increases in fuel, food and other basics”, said Mr. Finnegan.

He said that the construction industry had been particularly badly hit in recent months but pointed out that many building workers had been forced into self-employment against their will but were now suffering because the do not have the same entitlements to unemployment benefit, sick benefit and dental benefit that they would have had as employees.  “These are hidden victims of the changing nature of the construction industry” he said.

The Workers’ Party President said that the natural inclination of the government, of right-wing economists and parties such as Fine Gael to such crises is to cutback public spending and demand wage freezes for workers, when they fail abjectly to deal with the causes of the oncoming recession.

 “It is not the workers who have created this crisis but the greed of the international banking sector and global corporations who have caused the price of oil to spin out of control through their speculation and panicked trading in shares. Workers as usual become the fall-guys for the shortcomings and contradictions of international capitalism”, said Michael Finnegan.

Issued 4th July 2008