George Osborne's austerity budget will result in the loss of up to 1.3m jobs across the economy over the next five years according to a private Treasury assessment of the planned spending cuts, the Guardian has learned.

Unpublished estimates of the impact of the biggest squeeze on public spending since the second world war show that the government is expecting between 500,000 and 600,000 jobs to go in the public sector and between 600,000 and 700,000 to disappear in the private sector by 2015.

The chancellor gave no hint last week about the likely effect of his emergency measures on the labour market, although he would have had access to the forecasts traditionally prepared for ministers and senior civil servants in the days leading up to a budget or pre-budget report.

A slide from the final version of a presentation for last week's budget, seen by the Guardian, says: "100-120,000 public sector jobs and 120-140,000 private sector jobs assumed to be lost per annum for five years through cuts."

The job losses in the public sector will result from the 25% inflation-adjusted reduction in Whitehall spending over the next five years, while the private sector will be affected both through the loss of government contracts and from the knock-on impact of lower public spending.

The Treasury is assuming that growth in the private sector will create 2.5m jobs in the next five years to compensate for the spending squeeze. Osborne said in last week's speech that tackling Britain's record peacetime budget deficit would help keep interest rates low and boost job creation. "Some have suggested that there is a choice between dealing with our debts and going for growth. That is a false choice." However, investors are increasingly nervous about the lack of growth in the world economy. The FTSE 100 fell more than 3% yesterday as fresh jitters hit confidence.

The opposition and trade unions said the unpublished Treasury forecasts backed up their argument that the unprecedented scale of the cuts in public spending would hamper Britain's recovery from the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29...-austerityClean website!

I can't say I know much about government budgets, but I don't think you need to be a financial wizard to see that in reality, there aren't a whole lot of alternatives. You can't just keep on spending money you don't have. In fact, as individuals. we stop spending as soon as the pay check runs out, right? So wouldn't it make sense that the government do the same?

If you have a business whose profits are slipping and you simply no longer have the means to pay your employees, what do you do? Keep paying them out of your credit until that's gone, too? Or until you lose the business altogether??

No one likes having their job eliminated, (I know, our so-called stable job was cut, too) but reason indicates that there are not many choices and you have to admit that it takes guts for a guy whose livelihood depends on being popular with the masses to take such a stand.

What I can say is that the current economy dictates that we as individuals need to look elsewhere for a means to sustain ourselves. Become creative in, First, cutting household costs, and, Second, look for alternative ways to earn a living.

Edit: I had more on alternative ways to earn a living and then realized I was going way off topic. lol I'll post the remainder in another thread. Hope you find it!