March 22, 2017
Employers in industries reliant on overseas workers will be hardest hit by Brexit 0
Accommodation and food services, manufacturing, and transport industries will be hardest hit by limits on movement of EU and non-EU workers following Brexit, a new report has claimed. The latest edition of Mercer’s Workforce Monitor has highlighted how reliant certain sectors of the UK economy have become on EU-born and non-EU born workers, as respectively, 33 percent, 23 percent and 20 percent of accommodation and food services, manufacturing, and transport are made up of non-UK-born nationals, meaning companies in those sectors, and those reliant on them, are especially at risk from the changes in the UK’s migration policy. According to Gary Simmons, Partner at Mercer, “Since 2013, the UK-born workforce has been declining as people retire and we can see how reliant certain industries are on overseas workers filling the gaps. The UK is likely to impose more stringent migration controls in the future and this will reduce the number of overseas workers available.”
March 7, 2016
Government talks a good game on technology, then fails to deliver 0
by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, News, Technology
Last week, the UK Cabinet Office Minister Matt Hancock delivered a speech to the Institute of Directors, outlining details of the government’s Cyber First programme which aims to develop the skills needed to address the security threats posed by the digital revoluution. The speech was full of the usual stuff about the ‘interconnected world’. It even suggested at one point that the UK has ‘one of the most digitally advanced governments in the world’. Recent developments would suggest that this is slightly wide of the mark, to put it mildly. According to a February report from the regulator Ofcom, the UK’s broadband infrastructure continues to lag behind other countries, held back by BT’s characteristically inept and self-serving monopoly of cable infrastructure. Now the government has confirmed it scrapped its flagship mobile infrastructure project which set out to reduce the number of ‘not spots’ in the country.
More →