The self-satisfaction of Brighton and Hove’s two Tory MPs on employment numbers (The Argus, May 16) will not go down well with many residents struggling with a cost-of-living crisis.

Many of those in work and not counted in the unemployment figures are on low wages and classed as in poverty.

Many will be on zero-hours contracts, working only when their employer needs them.

Others will now be classed as “self-employed”, struggling to get by on incomes far below the jobs they have been forced out of.

While the Tories trumpet statistics that many now believe hide the real scale of a national underemployment crisis, the growing numbers of city residents being forced to use food banks shows that this is a recovery only for the few at the top, engineered by their friends in the Cabinet.

If elected next May, Labour will work to give everyone a secure and well-paid job so that our economy can grow in a sustainable way that benefits all of us.

Councillor Warren Morgan, leader of the Labour and Co-operative Group, Brighton and Hove City Council