The TUC had mixed feelings about the new higher National Minimum Wage (NMW) rate for workers aged 25 and above announced in the July Budget. This will effectively create a new NMW band for older adults – £7.20 from April 2016, rising to more than £9.00 by 2020. We were of course pleased that…Read more…
What’s happening to earnings?
This is one of those ‘one chart says it all’ posts. Yesterday I was too busy looking at the regular labour market figures from the Office for National Statistics to notice they’d also published a Supplementary Analysis of Average Weekly Earnings. It’s well worth a read, and…Read more…
Jobs gaps – the forward march of egalitarianism halted?
I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s monthly employment statistics (it’s an exciting life at the TUC) and I’ve been thinking about the employment and unemployment gaps between men and women. In some respects, the convergence of men’s and women’s employment opportunities that we’ve got used to over a…Read more…
“Want work” levels and women’s labour market participation
Women Want Work is a new TUC briefing that argues that the official unemployment figures under-state the jobs shortage; in particular they minimise the number of women who aren’t in employment but ideally would like a paid job. This is because of the way unemployment is defined for the…Read more…
Today’s employment statistics
I have a post at Left Foot Forward looking at today’s labour market figures. I argue that it’s important not to read too much into one month’s figures, but it is worrying if this country can achieve decent jobs growth or adequate earnings but never both.
The post Today’s…Read more…
Apprentices levy: government skills policy paradigm shift
It’s a game changer – that is the general reaction to the news of a levy on large employers to pay for apprentices. It has met with much surprise too. Is this really what we expect from a Conservative government? Something that three successive Labour governments felt was a step too far?…Read more…
High levels of underemployment still remain
Our recent analysis shows that underemployment (people who have fewer hours of work than they want) remains nearly a million higher than before the recession. The findings come ahead of new unemployment data to be published this week, which are expecte…Read more…
Graduates’ pay still lower than seven years ago
This morning the government released the quarterly Graduate Labour Market Statistics for England, which allow us to look at post-graduate, graduate and non-graduate employment rates and salaries since 2006. You wouldn’t know it from the government’s spin, but graduate pay has been slipping for two…Read more…
Disabled workers in Great Britain: What now?
The TUC released a comprehensive report today revealing just how little progress for disabled people in the workforce was achieved under the 2010-15 government. The headline employment and unemployment rate figures paint a picture of essential stagnati…Read more…
Zero-hours contracts just the tip of the iceberg for low-paid and insecure jobs
While zero hour contracts have dominated the media headlines recently, short hour contracts, along with other forms of insecure work are also making the lives of many workers difficult. Our recent analysis shows that in addition to the 700,000 workers …Read more…
Making self-employed lives liveable
Last week the RSA published a new report looking at the living standards of the self-employed. Why did we undertake this study? Simple: Because the self-employed community is booming but government, business and wider society have yet to catch up. In recent years, we’ve seen plenty of initiatives…Read more…
Saving Our Safety Net Fact of the Week: Unions reduce inequality
I take every opportunity I can to promote The Union Advantage – it’s a TUC pamphlet that sets out the reasons why workers are better off in unions. It sets out all the hard-nosed “what’s in it for me?” stuff like higher pay rises, safer workplaces and fairer treatment. But I’m proud that it…Read more…
How do you solve a problem like measurement of zero-hours contracts?
We know a fair deal about the detrimental growth of zero-hours contracts in the UK labour market. We know that workers on them cannot depend on how much money they will bring home or what childcare they will need from week to week. We know that typical…Read more…
#Budget2015 Real talk about regional employment growth
Regional employment growth is a pretty simple statistic. The ONS helpfully publishes a clear analysis every month. In fact, they did this just yesterday morning. In his budget announcement yesterday afternoon, Mr. Osborne boldly proclaimed: “Today’s figures show that since 2010, 1000 more jobs have…Read more…
#Budget2015: Growth of good jobs? Good luck!
When it comes to jobs growth figures, one would expect the Chancellor to, at minimum, get his speech to agree with his own analysis, better still for that analysis to be accurate. When presenting at the despatch box this afternoon, Mr Osborne stated: “Today’s figures show that since 2010, 1000 more…Read more…
Today’s Labour Market Statistics
My post on today’s labour market statistics is up at Left Foot Forward – Once again we are remined this will not feel like a recovery for everyone
The post Today’s Labour Market Statistics appeared first on ToUChstone blog.Read more…
After the crisis: is gender equality back on track?
Women’s employment is at a record high and the full-time gender pay gap is narrowing. But is the steady progress towards greater gender equality in the UK’s workplaces really back on track? The headlines mask some significant labour market changes for women in the years since the financial crash…Read more…
Real pay cuts since 2010 – even for workers in continuous employment
Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the proportion of workers who have suffered a fall in the real value of their hourly pay (that is, after taking inflation into account) is higher than you would expect, still higher than it was …Read more…
A rising tide may lift all boats, but DWP disability release fails to show decreasing disadvantage
Late last month, the DWP put out a glowing headline: 400 more disabled people in work every day. It is not entirely unwelcome news. It does mean that there has been net growth of more than 141,000 disabled people in some form of employment over the past year. It also means that the DWP is…Read more…
What has been happening to self-employment lately?
Self-employment has become a popular subject recently, with many commentators having various explanations for the rise in self-employment. In this post I am aiming to clarify what’s been happening to self-employment over the long term, since 2008, over the past year, and the important difference…Read more…