Keeping your job beats bonding with baby

It would have sounded a progressive idea two years ago. Men would have discovered their caring side by bonding with their children. Women would have been relieved of the burdens of childcare. What could be fairer?

Fear has superseded fairness now, and the commission's civil servants merely appear deluded for not realising it. As the recession bites, Londoners are not worried about their work-life balance but about having any work at all.

If the commission doubts me, it should look at how desperate new mothers are to get back to the office. The National Day-Nurseries Association reported last month that its members' business was roaring ahead as women decided they had to be seen at their desks. Peter Churchley, who runs a chain of nurseries in Surrey, said his staff were looking after babies aged as young as three months. Their mothers believed anecdotal accounts of women's jobs disappearing because they took the full maternity package.

A recession's priorities are the opposite of a bubble's. When times were good my friends wanted to "find themselves" by taking a break from the rat race and travelling. Now they are learning to appreciate the rat race's attractions. When KPMG and others offer their employees three months' unpaid leave as a cost-saving measure, I wonder how many accountants fear that out of sight will become out of mind - and then out of work.

Meanwhile, older workers who dreamed of retiring early and travelling the world find they can't "spend the kids' inheritance" because they can't sell their homes. Students are wondering if gap years are dangerous extravagances. At the start of the crisis it seemed wise to get out of Britain and hope for better times on their return. Now student travel companies report that the gap year is shrinking into a long summer holiday.

In such circumstances, it is not the business of quangocrats to sit around in Whitehall dreaming up ways to get people out of work. They would be better employed considering how to keep employees in work - and how to find jobs for the millions who soon won't have them.