JOB adverts are falling while potential redundancies are rocketing, according to fresh UK Government statistics, sparking fears Liz Truss’s government could be sending Scotland back to the economic dark days of Margaret Thatcher.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show in the week ending September 30, job adverts were down 17% compared to the same period in 2021, with a gradual downward trend recorded since mid-February.
Alongside this, potential redundancies in the week ending September 25 shot up by almost a fifth compared to last year, with the number of employers proposing job cuts up 27%.
It comes amid soaring inflation – which sits at around 10% - which the Bank of England is attempting to stem with rising interest rates that are sending mortgages through the roof.
The latest alarming figures have led some politicians to conclude Prime Minister Truss is leading the UK down the same path Thatcher did in the 1980s.
Although Thatcher managed to bring down inflation – which hit 25% in the mid-1970s – she raised interest rates sharply in order to do it, which eventually led to a recession and mass unemployment.
By 1983, a staggering three million people were out of work.
Maggie Chapman, the Scottish Greens economy spokesperson, said it was clear the Tories’ see the 1980s as a “golden age” and these latest statistics show they can’t be trusted with the economy.
She said: “Time and again the Tories have shown they can't be trusted with our economy. Whether it is the skyrocketing costs on our shop shelves or runaway inflation, they know the damage they are doing and the human cost of it, but they just don't care.
"They see the 1980s as some kind of golden age and something to aspire to and replicate.
“They don't care about the millions of people who were left in desolation while their jobs, services and industries were attacked in the name of a failed ideology. They don't care for the communities that were hammered or the life chances and opportunities that were stripped from so many.
"We cannot ever go back to those dark days. Instead, we must invest in the jobs and industries of the future, securing an economy that works for everyone, not just the wealthy few.
"But every day that the big economic levers lie in the hands of a cruel Tory government is another day that many will be forced to struggle and suffer. With independence we can take a different and better path.”
The interest rate on a typical two-year fixed rate mortgage breached 6% on Thursday for the first time in 14 years, in another sign of economic turmoil in the UK.
The typical deal has a rate of 6.07%, the financial information service Moneyfacts said, which has not been seen since the financial crisis of 2008.
On Wednesday, a poll showed Truss is already more unpopular than Boris Johnson following a disastrous first few weeks as PM.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s business, energy, and industrial strategy spokesperson, said: "Liz Truss claimed she wanted to mirror Margaret Thatcher and she's doing just that by running the economy into the ground and turning her back on hard-pressed households.
"And just like Thatcher, Liz Truss has been resoundingly rejected by the people of Scotland.
"Within a matter of weeks, she has crashed the economy and with inflation and mortgages set to spiral even further, Liz Truss has earned a worse favourability rating than Boris Johnson.
“History has proved that Scotland will always be vulnerable under Westminster control - so let there be no doubt that the only way to rid our country of the Tories once and for all is with independence."
