Category Archives: Work & careers

Liz Kendall says getting people into work is best way to cut benefits bill

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Chancellor is eyeing welfare system for potential cuts but pensions secretary says more support for jobseekers is key

The work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has said helping more people back into a job is the best way to cut the benefits bill, as the chancellor looks for savings ahead of the 26 March spring statement.

With Rachel Reeves zeroing in on welfare as a source of potential cuts as she prepares to take action to meet her self-imposed fiscal rules, Kendall said the starting point must be getting people back into work – not numbers on a spreadsheet.

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UK ban on zero-hours contracts ‘to include agency workers’

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Government to expand coverage of employment rights bill, according to report

Agency workers will reportedly be included in a ban on “exploitative” zero-hours contracts as part of changes to the UK government’s employment bill.

Under the new rules, employers will have to offer agency workers a contract that guarantees a minimum number of hours every week, the BBC reported.

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Mental health crisis ‘means youth is no longer one of happiest times of life’

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UN-commissioned study in UK, US, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand finds satisfaction rises with age

For more than half a century, the midlife crisis has been a feature of western society. Fast cars, impulsive decisions, and peak misery between the age of 40 and 50. But all that is changing, according to experts.

In a new paper commissioned by the UN, the leading academics Jean Twenge and David Blanchflower warn that a burgeoning youth mental health crisis in six English-speaking countries worldwide is upending the traditional pattern of happiness across our lifetimes.

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Labour unveils sick-pay guarantee for 1.3m lowest-paid workers

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Workers earning under £123 a week to get 80% of salary in sick pay, keeping more people off benefits

More than 1 million of the lowest-paid UK workers are to be guaranteed sick pay worth up to 80% of their weekly salary from the first day of sickness, under changes intended to boost living standards.

The UK has one of the stingiest rates of statutory sick pay in the developed world, according to the Resolution Foundation, with those earning less than £123 a week not entitled to anything. For the rest, the rate is set at just £116.75 a week at present, rising to £118.75 – or £3 an hour – for full-time workers from April, but that only kicks in after three days of sickness.

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UK awarded its lowest ranking for workplace gender equality in a decade

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‘Sluggish’ pace in tackling gender pay gap and worsening employment levels push UK back to 18th in PwC index of OECD countries

Women’s worsening unemployment and participation in the workforce has pulled the UK behind Canada to its lowest ranking for workplace equality among large economies in a decade.

The “sluggish” pace of change on women’s earnings relative to men’s – which means closing the gender pay gap could take more than 30 years at the current pace – has knocked the UK back one place to 18th in the Women in Work Index produced by advisory firm PwC.

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UK firms mull biggest layoffs in a decade as business confidence slumps

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Impending tax rises from autumn budget fuel collapse in sentiment and rising redundancy intentions, surveys show

UK employers are preparing for the biggest redundancy round in a decade amid collapsing business confidence as firms brace for tax increases from April that Rachel Reeves announced in her autumn budget.

In a fresh blow for the chancellor, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), which represents human resources professionals, said a survey of 2,000 employers showed redundancy intentions at their highest level in 10 years, barring the Covid pandemic.

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Unpaid internships ‘locking out’ young working-class people from careers

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UK charity calls for positions of four weeks or longer to be banned to help close social mobility gap

Young people from working-class or disadvantaged backgrounds are being “locked out” of careers by unpaid or low-paid internships that benefit middle-class graduates, according to a social mobility charity.

Research by the Sutton Trust found that middle-class graduates made more use of internships as stepping stones into sectors such as finance or IT, even in cases where the internships paid nothing or below the minimum wage as required by legislation.

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Work-life balance more important than pay for employees worldwide

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Annual survey finds workers have ‘multifaceted expectations’ after changes cause by Covid pandemic

Work-life balance has soared in importance for workers around the world, becoming their top motivator and pushing pay into second place, according to an annual international survey of thousands of employees.

It is the first time that finding or keeping a job that fits in with the rest of their lives has outranked salary in the 22-year history of the international recruitment company Randstad’s annual review of the world of work, highlighting the corporate revolution caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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UK employers ‘risk losing good people’ without policies on infertility, say managers

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Survey by Chartered Management Institute finds only 19% of companies have a policy in place

Employers should have formal policies in place to help workers who are undergoing fertility treatment, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has said, warning that businesses are increasingly losing talented people by failing to support them.

With NHS data showing that one in every seven couples have difficulty conceiving, the professional body urged companies to be understanding and supportive, and offer flexible work hours and paid time off to accommodate medical appointments, as well as paid compassionate leave when necessary.

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‘A fork in the road’: laundry-sorting robot spurs AI hopes and fears at Europe’s biggest tech event

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Humanoid called Digit fuelled boosterism at Web Summit, but also raised concerns about jobs, safety and climate

This year’s Web Summit, in Lisbon, was all about artificial intelligence – and a robot sorting laundry.

Digit, a humanoid built by the US firm Agility Robotics, demonstrated how far AI has come in a few years by responding to voice commands – filtered through Google’s Gemini AI model – to sift through a pile of coloured T-shirts and place them in a basket.

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Finnish fathers taking nearly double length of paternity leave since 2022 reform

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Dads say rule change granting both parents equal time off has helped build bond between children and fathers

Paternity leaves in Finland have nearly doubled in length after a 2022 reform of the parental leave system, the social benefits agency has said.

The change granted both parents equal amounts of leave for the first time: 160 days each of paid leave, to be used before the child turns two. Sixty-three of the days can be transferred to the other parent, if desired.

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Australian construction industry calls for skilled migration overhaul to ease ‘desperate’ shortage of tradies

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Labour shortage is driving up construction costs and stopping industry from building enough homes to ease housing crisis, Master Builders says

Leading construction bodies are urging the government to change its approach to skilled migration and bring in more migrants to ease the shortage of tradies.

Industry bodies say a chronic shortage of workers across 12 different trades is impacting housing prices and affecting the flow of new homes into the market.

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‘They refused to let me go’: Japanese workers turn to resignation agencies to quit jobs

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One in six workers has engaged a firm to hand in notice for them, as younger workers reject traditional work ethic

Mari was just two months into her new job when she decided she had had enough. The position at an online bank in Tokyo, found through a staffing agency, had looked like a perfect fit for the 25-year-old, a member of Japan’s legions of temporary workers.

But she quickly became despondent. “On my first day they gave me a thick manual to read, and when I went to my boss with questions he said: ‘What the hell are you asking me that for?’”

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Woman who did not get leaving card loses UK employment claim

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Karen Conaghan brought 40 complaints to tribunal including for sexual harassment and victimisation

A woman who sued her former employer over not being given a leaving card lost her case when it was revealed it had been hidden from her after only three people signed it.

Karen Conaghan claimed that the “failure to acknowledge her existence” at IAG, the parent company of British Airways, was a breach of equality law.

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New enforcement agency will protect workers’ rights as part of ‘watershed’ bill

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Employment rights legislation has been widely heralded by trade unions despite some commitments being watered down

Rogue employers will be targeted by a beefed-up new enforcement agency to protect sweeping changes to rights at work for millions of Britons, set to be outlined in a “watershed” bill published on Friday.

The Fair Work Agency will be created as part of the government’s employment rights legislation, which will include stronger protections against unfair dismissal and exploitative contracts.

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Labour’s employment rights bill: what key changes will it bring?

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Improvements to workers’ rights to include day-one universal sick pay and an end to zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire

Labour’s employment rights bill is the biggest step towards enacting one of its key election offers: to make sweeping changes to rights at work and improve pay. Here are the main details of the legislation, though much of it will take more than two years to consult on and implement.

Guidance – but not legislation – on the right to switch off, preventing employees from being contacted out of hours, except in exceptional circumstances.

Legislation to end pay discrimination, which is expected to come separately in a draft bill that will include measures to make it mandatory for large employers to report their ethnicity and disability pay gap.

A consultation on a move towards a single status of worker – one of the most important changes that has been left out of the bill, which Labour sources have said needs a much longer consultation period.

Reviews into the parental leave and carers’ leave systems.

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Labour’s workers’ rights plans can win over Tory and Reform voters, says TUC

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Trade union leaders meet ministers for final talks on employment rights bill before unveiling on Thursday

Labour can use its overhaul of workers’ rights to win over disaffected Tory and Reform voters, the TUC has said, as the government prepares to introduce landmark legislation that will grant new rights to 7 million workers.

Trade union leaders met ministers on Tuesday for final discussions on the employment rights bill before its announcement on Thursday.

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Kemi Badenoch faces backlash as Tory rivals seize on maternity pay comments

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Leadership contender’s team in damage control mode after she is criticised for saying burden on business is ‘excessive’

Kemi Badenoch’s campaign was in damage control mode on the first day of Conservative party conference, as rival candidates criticised comments she made on maternity pay, saying the burden on business was “excessive” and that people should exercise more “personal responsibility”.

Badenoch, the frontrunner among party members in the four-way contest, was forced to twice clarify the comments and emphasise that she “of course” believed in maternity pay. But the comments were seized upon by other candidates, who distanced themselves from Badenoch’s words.

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Long-term sick need to get back to work where they can, says Starmer

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Labour leader says there should be more support to help people back into jobs, vowing to do ‘everything we can to tackle worklessness’

People who have been on long-term sickness leave and claiming benefits will need get back into the workplace “where they can”, Keir Starmer has said.

The prime minister said he wants more schemes across the country that support people back into work from long-term sickness because he believes in the “basic proposition that you should look for work”.

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The great divide: are office workers more productive than those at home?

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Amazon has told staff they must return five days a week – but experts don’t all agree that flexible working cuts output

Four years ago when the world of work was upended by the Covid pandemic, confident predictions were made that a permanent shift in remote working would follow the removal of lockdown restrictions.

Much has clearly changed since. Some of the earliest preachers of the brave new teleworking world – including the US tech companies Google and Microsoft – are among the most vocal to repent.

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