• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Go to Positive Money Europe
  • Go to Positive Money US

Positive Money

Making money and banking work for society

  • About us
    • Our vision
    • Who we are
    • History & highlights
    • Contact us
    • Current vacancies
    • In the media
    • Funding & Annual Reports
  • What we do
    • Educate & empower
    • Research and Policy
    • Campaign & local groups
    • Influence decision makers
    • In the media
    • International Movement
    • Events
  • Resources
    • Videos
    • Publications
    • Local group resources
    • Lobby your MP
    • Organise an Event
    • Policy resources
    • Shop
  • Press
  • Blog
  • Donate
  • Positive Money Europe
  • Positive Money US

The Treasury’s Job Support Scheme is a destructive creation

by David Barmes

The Treasury’s plan for jobs lacks the ambition and boldness we need to avoid an unemployment crisis. By relying on the process of ‘creative destruction’ in the midst of a global pandemic, the Job Support Scheme is doomed to fail, and coaching for the unemployed won’t change that outcome. 

As the furlough scheme comes to an end this month, the Treasury recently announced its new plan for jobs. Many commentators and businesses have warned that the new scheme is deeply flawed. It’s skewed incentives and insufficient support will not be enough to prevent the coming wave of redundancies, with 1 in 3 employers reporting they’re likely to lay off workers over the next three months. 

Rishi Sunak appears to believe that ‘creative destruction’ – the process by which innovation and entrepreneurship generates new economic activity and renders the old obsolete – will bring about new employment opportunities. In normal times, this process is a core feature of any capitalist economic system. But the ‘creative’ part – the innovation and entrepreneurship – cannot happen at scale in the midst of a global pandemic and during the deepest recession on record. Without more ambitious action from the Treasury, all that’s left is the ‘destruction’: mass layoffs, without new opportunities arising. Coaching and advice for the unemployed, which Sunak announced today, offers no remedy for this basic problem.

The best way to avoid an unemployment crisis is for the government to roll out a green jobs guarantee, as we outlined in our evidence to Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee last month. Such a programme would offer large scale public employment – including training where necessary – to anyone willing and able to work. The programme should focus on providing jobs necessary for our low-carbon transition, such as retrofitting the UK’s housing stock, tree planting and nature restoration, and renewable energy projects. Expanding employment in the provision of universal basic services like healthcare, education, and social care should also be central to such a programme, and would result in numerous other social benefits, alongside increasing employment.

By relying on creative destruction, Sunak has come up with a destructive creation. COVID-19 is not going anywhere anytime soon. The government needs a far bolder strategy to deal with the looming unemployment crisis, and public sector job creation must be a cornerstone of that strategy.

Others furlough, green jobs, jobs, Rishi Sunak, Treasury, unemployment

David Barmes

David is carrying out Positive Money’s latest research on Escaping Growth Dependency. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Psychology from McGill University and is currently completing a master’s degree in Socio-Ecological Economics & Policy at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. His research mostly falls within the field of ecological macroeconomics, where he draws on approaches and insights from Ecological, Post-Keynesian, and Institutionalist Economics.

Primary Sidebar

Get our latest campaign updates

Recent Posts

  • HeadSpin! Rewrite the rules of the money game
  • Campaigners trick or treat the banks
  • HSBC Q3 profits: Positive Money response
  • Natwest Q3 profits: Positive Money response
  • Lloyds Bank Q3 2023 profits: Positive Money response

Footer

Follow us on social media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions


Positive Money is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales. Registered number 07253015.
Registered office: 104 Davina House, 137-149 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7ET.


Positive Money Europe