The remaining banks have also made appreciable improvements to their levels of own funds through various means such as the issuance of capital instruments, asset disposals or retained earnings, in line with the recommendations on dividend pay-outs made by the Banco de España over the past two years. 3. Cost of the reform of the banking sector  At this stage we might ask what the necessary total cost has been to ensure the stability of the banking system and how it has been distributed among the various parties involved. And, specifically, we can ask what the taxpayer has contributed in this process. An accurate reply to these questions is no easy task, as two factors combine to complicate the estimations required. First, not all aid has already been disbursed; rather, it consists of guarantees covering against future losses that only have a certain likelihood of occurring. Second, not all aid disbursed will entail a loss for the public coffers, insofar as it may be partly or fully recouped through its return by the recipient banks themselves or from the proceeds of the sale of State stakes in these banks. That said, a good starting point to disentangle the matter is the note published last week by the Banco de España,1 which included an update of the different types of public financial assistance provided to the banking sector in the period 2009–2013.
Technology may be set to change jobs and wages more fundamentally than in the past. Job displacement and creation may come thicker and faster than ever previously. “Hollowing out” may become more pervasive. And gaps between those with and without skills, or with and without jobs, may widen as never before. Or that, at least, is the picture some have painted. These issues have fundamental implications for the functioning of industries and economies and the well-being of families and societies. They also, of course, have fundamental implications for the TUC and for policymakers like me. So after reviewing labour market developments, historically and prospectively, I want to conclude with some reflections on policy, including monetary policy. Good news, bad news Let me start with a review of recent developments in the labour market. There is plenty of good news to report here, with a boom in jobs and, to a lesser extent, wages in the UK. Yesterday’s labour market data confirmed that picture. But there are also strong crosscurrents at work, often rooted in longer-term structural shifts in the labour market, which offer a more worrying window on the world of work. •  In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis, there were understandable fears that unemployment would rise rapidly. At the start of 2009, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) was forecasting that the UK unemployment rate would rise into double figures, equivalent to over the 3.4 million people.