Britain's jobless: a green agenda

Tomorrow official unemployment figures will show another alarming rise in people out of work.

So far the private sector has born the brunt, but today the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development is warning the public sector is likely to be badly hit, losing 350,000 over the next five years.

This on the heels of a huge rise in graduates leaving university and further education with no job.

Whatever the perceived emergence of green shoots, mass unemployment is dawning. This reality coupled with the developing acute shortage in housing presents a real opportunity for leadership.

The talk of a Roosevelt type New Deal – in which the state conceives grand projects to make use of spare labour to build infrastructure that helps to kick-start a recovery – has been widespread.

The action according to many has been all but absent. Housing experts are predicting a shortage of homes in years to come.

All this against a background of the battle to combat climate change. Last month we learned that the Bank of England was printing £150bn in quantitative easing to try to keep credit moving. This on top of the many billions spent in saving the banks.

Trade union leaders and others are asking if it is now time to spend a fraction of this amount at the other end of the economy.

When are these developing armies of unemployed to be offered a New Deal?

How about setting up a ‘green corps’ in which all conditions of jobless young people are forged into teams in every part of Britain to make an inventory of every home in the UK that will assess insulation requirements that will enable every home in Britain to meet the highest environmental and emission standards?

Other teams could be established to carry out the work of insulating the nation’s homes on the basis of the ‘green corps’ inventory.

Finally, similar house-building squads could be established with the huge residue of unemployed construction and skilled electricians and the rest who are joining the ranks of jobless.

Rates for the work carried out might not be as good as those offered in a time of boom, but they would be above the minimum wage and considerably above the level of unemployment benefit.

The costs saved in not having to pay such benefits would contribute to the funding of the ‘green corps’ undertakings. Could this form the bedrock of a New ‘green’ Deal?