Published: Thursday, 19th March, 2009 8:10am

The real cost of recession

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THE unemployment figures we publish today are a slap in the face for anyone feeling remotely complacent about the strength of the aftershock from the world economic and banking collapse.

Booming Berkshire, while not quite immune from previous blips, has managed to ride out most squalls to date in a mood of optimism and confidence, but the seas are getting rougher.

Over the past dozen years the job statistics have rarely merited more than a monthly paragraph, let alone front page news, but to learn that almost 5,000 more men and women have begun claiming Jobseekers' Allowance since this time last year across Reading, West Berkshire, Wokingham and South Oxfordshire, should disperse any last traces of smugness.

It is not a time for platitudes or even the "we're doing all we can" assurances from the Government and, as our We Can Work It Out campaign demonstrates, it is wonderful to see how many people are prepared to roll up their sleeves and get stuck in in a bid to shape events before those events can shape them.

But in our pages today there is also a reminder of the human cost of economic recession with our report that Berkshire Women's Aid has appointed a domestic abuse adviser to work inside Reading's Royal Berkshire Hospital.

The loss of a job and the resulting reduction in family living standards will inevitably create tensions within the home and those pressures are capable of transforming the most stable of relationships into violent conflict. The BWA adviser's job will be to help hospital staff spot the not always obvious evidence of domestic abuse and to provide counselling and guidance to the victims.

Such forward thinking is not always visible in the overall picture but, with unemployment nationally passing the two million mark this week, we all have a duty to ensure that the human consequences of the recession do not leave an indelible mark.