Bernard Ginns: If you don’t want to feel any worse, please look away now

Anger at rising unemployment, anger at soaring executive pay and anger at the inability of our political leaders to do little or anything against a backdrop of the UK dipping back into recession.

Figures show that unemployment in Yorkshire and the Humber rose by 51,000 between July and September to hit 274,000.

This region now has the second-highest unemployment rate in the UK, with 10.3 per cent of working age people jobless.

Ministers described the Yorkshire figures as “a worry” but blamed a lack of business confidence fuelled by the eurozone crisis.

An economist with a good regional perspective has suggested three reasons why unemployment is so high in Yorkshire. One, it has a large construction sector. Construction levels fell during the third quarter, according to RICS.

Kevin Wood, RICS spokesman in Yorkshire, said last week that the construction sector is “feeling the pain of a perfect storm”, with confidence being hit by a triple whammy of economic uncertainty, large cuts in public sector programmes and the lack of available finance for development.

“With profit margins continuing to be squeezed, it is not surprising that further job losses are envisaged,” he added.

Two, Yorkshire has a large public sector, with an estimated 600,000 employees. Accountancy firm PwC calculates that the region lost 17,000 public sector jobs in the year ending June.

It said those losses have been earlier than expected which had the effect of sapping demand at a time when the economy is weakened by global economic shocks. Spending cuts will really kick in next year, so expect more job losses in the region.

Three, Yorkshire has a bigger than average manufacturing sector. This is arguably the strongest part of Yorkshire’s economy and where ministers hope the private sector jobs will be created.

The problem is that the sector is not creating very many new jobs, certainly not enough to fill the gap left by the public sector cuts.

Bill Speirs, the former Master Cutler, told me in September that the manufacturing industries of South Yorkshire want to grow and create wealth but would rather become more efficient than take on lots of extra staff.

Is high unemployment something we will have to get used to in Yorkshire? I don’t know of any good reasons why it might fall in the coming quarters.

Gary Williamson, of the Leeds, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, said that young people have been victims of the recession and that policymakers “have a duty to ensure that this generation is not lost to long-term unemployment, which would be an unforgivable waste of talent and skills”.

Anger at executive pay will continue and could intensify as unemployment gets worse. Some business groups seem alert to this danger.

Simon Walker, of the Institute of Directors, said last week: “The IoD has noted, with growing concern, the rapid rise in executive remuneration at the largest listed UK companies over the last 10 to 15 years.

“We are aware of the difficult challenges faced by remuneration committees in responding to a global market for executive talent. But the current pace of increase in executive pay is unsustain-able.

“The legitimacy of UK business in the eyes of wider society is significantly damaged by pay packages that are not clearly linked to company performance.”

Corporate leaders must act responsibly in the next few years or risk alienating themselves.

They should be careful of proving the economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s famous assertion that big salaries are less a market award for achievement and more “a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself”.

Anger at politicians will continue to be felt and could erupt in 2012 in a repeat of the student demonstrations and summer riots. Poverty was a uniting factor in the lives of many of the rioters and I cannot see a vast improvement in their lot in the coming year.

Students will continue to graduate with little chance of finding a decent job. And why should they suffer because of the greed of their elders who ruined the economy by spending vast sums of money borrowed on the never-never?

There are no easy solutions to any of these issues. The biggest counters are as follows: Yorkshire has strong communities, which are populated by neighbourly people. It has strong towns and cities which are home to collections of dynamic businesses that will continue to innovate and invest in the future, supported by devoted public servants.