Gordon Brown's employment plans come under serious pressure
Gordon Brown has today launched a new jobs initiative in the UK with £500 million due to be spent on getting the long-term unemployed back to work. The money will be used to increase training allowances and controversially offer employers a one-off payment of up to £2500 to take on new staff. However, the scheme has received a very critical response from the CBI and similar associations representing businesses of the UK.
While possibly in traditional times the £500 million scheme would have been well received by UK businesses we are not dealing in traditional markets at this moment in time. The aim of getting the longer term unemployed back to work has high merit but will do nothing to assist the short-term downturn in the UK economy.
Many business leaders are asking why Gordon Brown is not able to put further pressure on the UK banking system in order to release further capital to businesses which can then start to rebuild and grow. This would seem a more sensible long-term approach to the situation but as we have seen over the last few months the banking sector is very much at odds with the UK government although this may change if as expected, bail out part three comes to fruition.
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