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The Royal Mail has announced it is cutting 1,600 jobs just five months after its privatisation.

Unions are considering strike action in response, with management positions facing the chop.

Brian Scott, Unite's officer for Royal Mail, said: "First the government sells off Royal Mail on the cheap and now the newly privatised service is ruthlessly sacrificing jobs.

The national minimum wage is to go up to £6.50 per hour in October.

With inflation currently around 2%, the rate will gain value, and this will be a small step towards making work pay for unemployed people.

The level is set by the independent low pay commission, and business secretary Vince Cable has indicated that he will accept its recommendation.

It is currently £6.31, and has been losing value for years as inflation has outstripped the tiny cash rises in its value.

The Labour party has announced a plan to tax bankers' bonuses to pay for a job guarantee for young unemployed people.

The party wants to have its cake and eat it though; a job would be provided to all under-25s who had been unemployed for more than a year, but the would lose benefits if they turned it down.

The language of 'guarantees' versus ' compulsory' mean it is not clear whether Miliband and Balls are pro- or anti-unemployed.

Real earnings have fallen by 8% since the start of the recession in 2008 according to an influential survey of pay and work.

This shock finding was revealed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) today, helping to show why unemployed people often cannot afford to take the jobs they are offered.

It also shows why those in work can resent unemployed people - they have been getting poorer for so long that the idea of a benefit cap set at the level of average earnings appears to be fair.