Osborne’s job losses ‘will cost taxpayer £8bn’
George Osborne’s plans to cut 490,000 jobs from the public sector could end up costing the taxpayer £8 billion, Labour has said.
Shadow chancellor Alan Johnson extrapolated from figures showing that it would cost £230 million to make 140,000 Ministry of Justice staff redundant.
“If the taxpayer has to foot a comparable redundancy bill for the 490,000 jobs that are to go across the public sector, George Osborne has lined them up for an £8 billion hit,” he said.
“That is the price of going too far and too fast on a timetable determined by the date of next election, not the economic cycle.”
The figures come as Labour continues to try and chip away at confidence in the spending review, which the chancellor delivered to parliament yesterday.
