"Plaid-Labour Government Moves Wales' Economy Backwards"

12.00.00am GMT Wed 19th Mar 2008

'Labour Market' statistics released today show that Wales' economic inactivity is higher than the UK average. Wales has a 74.9% rate of Economic activity compared to the UK average of 79.0%, and falls behind both Scotland (80.9%) and England (79.3%). Wales has seen a fall in economic activity in the last year of 1.4%, compared to an increase in England of 0.2%, in Scotland of 0.6% and in the UK as a whole of 0.1%.

Michael German AM, Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the National Assembly described the figures as "a gloomy illustration of the weakening Welsh economy under the Plaid-Labour Government."

Mr. German continued: "Since becoming Minister Ieuan Wyn Jones has been massively complacent about moving Wales' economy forward and these figures show clearly how much more needs to be done. These are not just worrying statistics they reflect people's jobs, people's futures, people's lives.

"The Government has no skills strategy to address the skills shortage, which it itself has recognised as a major contribution to economic inactivity. With the Government's current lack of urgency it is unlikely that anything concrete will be in place for months to come and meanwhile Wales will fall further and further behind the rest of the UK and the international employment market.

"Not only do today's figures put us near the bottom of the UK table we are also falling near the bottom of the EU table, with Eastern European Countries having a higher percentage of growth than us and only Romania having a larger decrease than us since last year.

"A skilled and active workforce is essential to the Welsh economy. It is estimated that poorly educated staff are costing the UK economy up to £10 billion a year. We not only need more people in work we also need to up skill our current workforce to seriously compete in the world economy.

"The Plaid Labour Government must commit to increasing the skills of the workforce and ensuring that Wales is a place to do business - they must do this now to get the Welsh economy back on its feet and moving forwards not backwards."

Notes:

The official Labour Market statistics were released on 19th March 2008 and can be found in full at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0308.pdf