In this post I take a broader approach to an issue I looked at in my blog on Wednesday: employment rate gaps. One aspect of women’s economic dependency has been less involvement in the labour market, so the employment rate gap is a handy indicator. To work it out, you simply subtract women’s…Read more…
Self-employment – who are the new army of workers?
The rise in self – employment is well documented, the surge is extraordinary as self-employment is a relatively small part of the UK jobs market. More striking is that whilst women account for just under a third of all the self- employed, they have made up over half (53 per cent) of the increase…Read more…
The Fourth Industrial Revolution: a breakthrough that must be ‘humanised’
The fourth industrial revolution, otherwise known as digital manufacturing, is upon us. The concept of digital manufacturing has been around for about five years. Perhaps the easiest way to describe it is this: in the 1980s, when I first came into cont…Read more…
Women in work: has the progress come to an end?
Welcome to the first in a series of five blogposts on gender and the labour market. I’m going to kick us off by putting today’s labour market statistics in their historical context. Then I’ll worry a bit about whether progress on employment gaps between men and women is coming to an end….Read more…
Real Living Wage benefits 3K businesses and their workers. Let’s make it 30K next year
The new Living Wage rates for London and the rest of the UK will be announced at 9.30 this morning. The announcement will also be made simultaneously in Glasgow, Cardiff and Manchester. I shall be at the London launch with the Mayor, Sadiq Khan. The re…Read more…
Five things we’ve learnt about pay today
Today – ASHE Wednesday in our office – saw the publication of the annual figures on pay across the UK (ASHE is the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings). Here’s five things we’ve learnt: The National Living Wage is making a difference The introduction of the National Living Wage in April this year…Read more…
Major Reforms to Self-Employed Tax Administration
Government proposals for tax reforms may sound very technical, but they have huge implications for self-employed workers. Back in August the government published a set of Consultation Documents on their proposed reforms to the UK tax system under the r…Read more…
Is the UK’s employment lucky streak coming to an end? It’s too early to say
Yes, unemployment went up in the latest figures. Yes, I fear unemployment is going to rise significantly over the next 18 months. But today’s jobs figures don’t give us grounds for claiming it’s already started. The headline unemployment figure in June – August was 1,656,000 up from 1,646,000 in…Read more…
Despite Brexit worries and business lobbying, the PM must hold her nerve on minimum wage raises
In order to continue to take a place in the centre ground, the Prime Minister must stick to the government’s National Living Wage target for 2020, as this is now under some threat. When Greg Clark became business secretary, he immediately came under pressure to water down or delay the National…Read more…
Total bonuses reach record high
Government figures out today show that total bonuses across the economy have reached the highest level ever, surpassing the previous high seen just before the financial crash in 2007-8. While the financial sector accounts for nearly one third of the to…Read more…
Cavendish Coalition: tackling the #right2remain for health & care workers
We have read, written and talked much in recent years about the enormous pressures in our health and social care systems – pressures caused by increasing need as people live longer but are not always well; by public spending cuts; by the necessary expenses of modern, high-tech care; and,…Read more…
Record employment and profits bode well for minimum wage increase
Some employers have been lobbying the government to slow down or stall its minimum wage target for those aged 24 and above. The argument made is that post-referendum economic uncertainty will make the target impossible to meet. This is palpable nonsense. First, the Low Pay Commission (LPC) is…Read more…
What should we make of today’s employment figures?
Today’s employment figures tell us a story we’ve grown used to – employment is still growing, unemployment is coming down at a slower rate, wage growth is still slow and there are other signs that the labour market isn’t as strong as we’d ideally like. As Damian Green was quick to point out, the…Read more…
Give EU migrants already here an assurance they can stay
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady has co-signed a letter in the Sunday Telegraph today building on the joint statement that she made with CBI Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn last week, calling on the government to guarantee that EU migrants already in the UK can stay no matter what…Read more…
Trade unions and manufacturing employers join together to warn of Brexit threat to jobs
It’s the final day of campaigning for the EU referendum and the focus must be on the economic realities of tomorrow’s decision. Today I’ve published a joint statement with Terry Scuoler, the CEO of EFF the manufacturers’ organisation. In it, we say: “Leaving would be a terrible gamble,…Read more…
European unions take a stand on the platform against undeclared work
Undeclared work, if not properly confronted, threatens to undermine employment, wages and conditions for workers across Europe. The launch of the European Commission’s ‘Undeclared Work Platform’ was a long overdue initiative to tackle the exploitation of workers and unfair competition for…Read more…
A fragile jobs recovery – not the time for nasty shocks
The latest monthly jobs figures confirm the picture of a cyclical employment recovery that has been strong in some respects but shows worrying signs of running out of pzazz. The last thing we need right now is a vote for years of uncertainty putting a …Read more…
Sharing economy should be fair for all, not free for all
The European Commission’s statement on Thursday about what they call the ‘collaborative economy’, but which is better known as the ‘sharing economy’ or, more prosaically, ‘stuff like Uber and AirBnB’, was widely reported as telling governments and…Read more…
Employment slowing down, pay still disappointing
Today’s labour market figures from the Office for National Statistics again show encouraging employment and unemployment figures, but again there are signs that the jobs recovery is slowing down and the numbers for earnings continue to disappoint. But first the good news. The employment rate in…Read more…
What’s happening to employment?
Yesterday’s monthly Economic Review from the Office for National Statistics presented the latest labour market figures and provided an opportunity to look over the medium term at what is happening in the world of work and the signs that the jobs recovery is slowing down. Let’s start with the…Read more…