The short-sightedness of the government’s job review plan
The government is under pressure from newspaper editors, financial analysts, tax paying members of the general public to cut the size of the government’s wage bill, citing it as unsustainable at its current levels. Prime Minister Golding is credited with the statement “This wage-bill burden cannot be sustained, or else we will do nothing else but pay salaries and service debt.” The suggested solution to the problem is at best short-sighted and simplistic in approach and while it may fix a problem for the ‘government’ in the short term, it will create a problem for the country as a whole. I am not suggesting that the government cannot find any ‘fat to trim’ but the real question is, what will you do with the 10-15,000 people whose jobs will be made redundant? The emphasis here is on ‘jobs that will be made redundant’ not necessarily that the jobs have become redundant.
There are a number of stakeholders that have been watching these developments keenly. The over- burdened PAYE taxpayers have been clamouring for a more equitable tax system for decades. Incidentally, a significant number of these taxpayers are from the government sector. They feel that they have been let down by successive governments as they have always been asked to shoulder a disproportionate part of the governments tax bill. Any attempts to reduce the government’s budget and their tax bill would be welcomed.
You also have the trade unions that in times like these are forced to go ‘beyond the party line’ and fight for the jobs of their members or face their own demise. They must be feeling the pinch as it is reported that nearly 30,000 people have lost their jobs since the start of the current crisis. As it is also being suggested that further job losses are inevitable, they must be looking at ways to protect their income. It is not surprising therefore that at every forum, catch phrases such as flexi- work, job rotation along with other popular phrases are being touted as alternatives to business owners laying off workers or closing ‘shop’ completely.
Is condemning 10 -15,000 more people to the category of the ‘unemployed’ the solution to our problem? Are more jobs being created by the private sector that can hopefully absorb the losses from the government? Is this just a ‘numbers’ game? Will balancing the budget solve all our problems?
