Corus pay cut

Despite reports by the BBC and the Financial Times, Corus employees have not agreed to a 10% pay cut.

Speaking on 5live this morning, Community Union General Secretary Michael Leahy said that while discussions with Corus were ongoing, they had yet to agree a course of action to safe guard jobs at the Llanwern site.

-----update------

I've just had confirmation from a contact at Corus that no agreement has been reached.

WAG announces back to work scheme

The Welsh Assembly has announced a £19m project to get the long-term unemployed back to work.

The money, which includes £10.5m from the European Social Fund, will be spent on getting nearly 3,000 people back into work.

They'll be given access to a case worker, who will provide guidance and support on their 'journey back into the job market'.

More info...

Rhodri Morgan urged to help save jobs

While yesterday's announcements by Credit Suisse, HSBC and Halfords should have only a limited impact in South Wales, an announcement is expected later this week on the future of 10 HMRC offices in Wales.

Among those likely to be affected are offices in Brecon, Bridgend, Merthyr and Pontypool (...EU Objective One areas).

In anticipation of this announcement PCS Regional Organiser Jeff Evans has written to Rhodri Morgan saying...

"“We urge WAG to do everything it can to press the case for the retention of these offices and to avert a potentially calamitous decision to close them.

Many of these offices are based in some of our most deprived communities.

The impact of the office closures will be felt more widely than the individuals employed there. It will also impact on local businesses and services at a difficult time.

It is perplexing that a UK Government department should be removing Government jobs from our poorest communities in contrast to your Government, which is doing the reverse.”

Job Loss Map

The map below shows where in Wales jobs are being cut.

The number's in the map pin relate to the year the cuts were made (ie. 9 = 2009, 8 = 2008...Red pins are awaiting a date).

To see this map in a separate window, click here

Compiling the figures for this map meant collating information from various sources, so many thanks to:

• Wales Online
• BBC Wales
• Dylan Jones Evans
  

To see the data used to plot this map, and more details about the job losses, click here.

Introduction

As part of my course in Broadcast Journalism, I've been made part of the team responsible for covering employment news.

Given the current state of the economy it's not surprising to hear the majority of the news in this area relates to redundancies/job losses.

I'm going to try to use this blog to keep a track of job losses as they happen. I would welcome any input you can provide, and while I'll do my best to keep all the figures accurate, please don't hesitate to let me know if I've made a mistake, or more importantly, missed something out.

Background

The last few months have seen a flurry of job-losses across Wales, with a number of large and small firms announcing closures or cut-backs as they try and limit the effects of the economic downturn.

The bulk of the job losses seem to have been in the manufacturing sector, despite the widely held view that the white collar workers will be the major victims of this recession.

As Dylan Jones pointed out in a recent article, the Welsh economy's saving grace could be the large Public Sector workforce, whose jobs are likely to be largely safeguarded by an increase in Government spending...although this hasn't prevented the current dispute between the PCS Union and the Government (their employers), which saw a civil service strike suspended at the 11th hour.

With Bosch, Hoover, and David McLean all confirming job losses in the last few days, my immediate focus is on tracking the number of employers cutting back on staff.

To help with this, I have set up a map showing where job losses have occurred.

Click here for a map outlining job losses in Wales.