Job creation can be used to justify anything

"There is no nonsense so gross that it cannot be justified by the creation of jobs," writes columnist George Monbiot. "It is true that investment creates employment. But jobs are used to justify anything and everything. If recession strikes, the political value of any scheme which boosts them will rise. Projects which in more prosperous times might have been rejected by planners or ministers will suddenly find favour. Anyone who stands in their way - however daft the schemes may be - will be walloped as an antisocial Luddite. But the big question is asked very rarely in the press: how reliable are these promises ? Whenever a new defence contract or superstore or road or airport is announced, newspapers and broadcasters repeat the employment figures without questioning them. They rarely return to the story to discover whether the claims were true."

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