As the furlough scheme is about to end, so will the £20 Universal Credit ‘uplift’. With double the number of claimants since onset of Covid, Unite demands the UC rise becomes permanent
The post…Read more…
‘Workers and businesses still need more help’
New figures published today (June 15) have shown signs that the labour market is recovering after lockdown restrictions eased earlier this year, with unemployment falling for the fourth month in a…Read more…
‘Year of jobs destruction’
The coronavirus pandemic has taken an unprecedented toll on the jobs market, with about 800,000 people having lost their jobs since March last year, new figures reveal. The Office for National…Read more…
Black Friday 1921: One hundred years on the unemployed still need to organise
Mention Black Friday today and most people will conjure up images of bargain-hunting shoppers grappling with each other for discounted consumer goods. But 100 years ago, on April 15 1921, Black…Read more…
Pandemic ‘holding up mirror to discrimination’
This week, on the first anniversary of the UK’s first lockdown, UNITElive is featuring some of the top stories we have covered on the pandemic and our members’ contributions, concerns and…Read more…
‘On the precipice of an unemployment crisis’
The number of UK redundancies have skyrocketed at a record rate, with almost a quarter of a million redundancies made in the three months to August, the latest unemployment figures show. The latest…Read more…
‘Thin gruel for fearful workers’
“I’m afraid to say that when the country hungers for a hearty diet of jobs saving and creation, the chancellor has offered little more than thin gruel for fearful workers.
The post ‘Thin gruel for…Read more…
The ‘fight of our lives’
With the tsunami of job losses we predicted when Rishi Sunak announced, the phasing-out of the furlough scheme now coming to pass, the government’s reversion to type with a reliance on a failed “free…Read more…
‘Ignored by the gov’t in their hour of need’
New jobless figures published on Tuesday (August 11) show the scale of the employment crisis facing the UK amid the coronavirus pandemic, with nearly three quarters of a million jobs falling off…Read more…
UK payrolls dwindle by 640,000 under lockdown
Pressure is growing on chancellor Rishi Sunak to take further action to avert a growing jobs crisis after new figures published today (July 16) show the number of people on UK payrolls plummeted by…Read more…
Jobless claims rise to more than 2m
When a survey found this week that millions of people fear losing their jobs in the next six months, shocking unemployment figures reveal today (May 19) that their worries are justified. The total…Read more…
In-work poverty rising
Rising employment and wages figures out today (December 11) belied the overall health of the economy as new GDP figures painted a starker picture of things to come. Both employment and…Read more…
‘Fragile’ economy
Any hopes of an economic boost were dashed today (November 13) as new figures revealed an unexpected rise in unemployment, while earnings barely rose against a backdrop of languishing productivity….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…
Spirit of ‘81
Though more than three decades apart, the problems facing working people in 1981 were not dissimilar to those we face today in 2016. A Conservative government then had its grip on power as it…Read more…
Worrying increase in sanctions against the sick and disabled
Today’s figures revealed that sanctions against Employment and Support (ESA) claimants increased in December to 1,708. This was up by 451 on the previous month. ESA is the out-of-work benefit for people whose illness, health condition or disability makes it difficult or impossible to work. To…Read more…
Insecure work on rise
Unite cautioned government ministers against ‘popping out the champagne’ today (December 16) as it warned the fall in unemployment masked a continued rise in self-employment and low paid, insecure,…Read more…
Jobs or pay – we still haven’t got the hang of delivering on both
I have a post up at Left Foot Forward, looking at today’s labour market statistics. There’s some good news – though perhaps the first signs that self-employment is growing disproportionately again – but there’s also reasons to worry that pay rises are slowing down…Read more…
Fragile recovery
The fragile nature of the so-called economic recovery, particularly outside London and the south east, has been highlighted by the latest rise in unemployment, Unite said today (August 12). …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…