August 28, 2020
A new trial of universal basic income and its effects on people’s wellbeing, work and wealth is set to start next year in Germany. The study will see 120 people receive €1,200 each month for three years, and researchers will compare their experiences with another group of 1,380 people who will not receive the payments. More →
August 27, 2020
According to a recent survey of more than 1,500 US based respondents, workers are now three times more likely to report poor mental health than they were before the pandemic. The study also claims that seventy-five percent of people have experienced burnout at work, with 40 percent saying they’ve experienced burnout during the pandemic specifically. The report suggests that this is not surprising, given that 37 percent of employed respondents are currently working longer hours than usual since the pandemic started. More →
August 14, 2020
Half (49 percent) of employed British adults feel positive about the prospect of returning to their place of work after lockdown, with less than one in five (18 percent) feeling negative, an Aviva study claims. The findings paint a relatively positive picture for businesses that have supported their people through lockdown, such as regularly communicating with workers and taking necessary steps to manage the risk of infection in the workplace. However, where businesses have not embraced risk management and prevention strategies, employees may decide not to return to work at all. More →
August 13, 2020
Three quarters of UK employees (74 percent) trust their employer to create a physically safe workplace and generally healthy work environment and the vast majority (92 percent) of employees are at least “a little” comfortable with contact tracing led by their employer for the purpose of organisational safety. This is according to a new survey Kronos Incorporated of 3,903 employees across 10 countries. More →
August 11, 2020
In the second quarter of 2020, freelancers’ average income dropped by 25 percent, according to the latest freelancer Confidence Index by IPSE (the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed). According to IPSE, the drop in income was driven by a record fall in the average number of weeks freelancers worked this quarter. Between March and June, the average freelancer went 5.5 weeks out of 13 without work. Combined with a 3 percent fall in freelancers’ average day rates, this led to average quarterly earnings declining by 25 percent from £20,821 in Q1 2020 to £15,709 in Q2 2020. More →
July 27, 2020
New analysis of online vacancy data suggests that parts of London are now the most economically at risk from the coronavirus pandemic. The analysis of the UK job market compares the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits in each local area with the number of vacancies. It claims that the four areas with the highest number of unemployed per vacancy are London Boroughs – Lambeth, Haringey, Brent, and Barking and Dagenham – with more than forty claimants chasing each available job. More than a third of all areas with thirty or more claimants-per-vacancy are London Boroughs. More →
July 17, 2020
In the week the ONS announced that the number of self-employed people in the UK had dropped by 178,000 over the last quarter, a new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Study suggests that the growing number of people who turn to self-employment do so despite a drop in their incomes. On average, they earn nearly £500 (30 percent) less a month than they did before falling out of traditional employment. More →
July 15, 2020
CEOs and the self-employed are cautiously optimistic about post-lockdown growth, claims a new report. As the country begins to emerge from lockdown, new research from The Institute of Leadership & Management ‘Life after lockdown: future of work’, explores the predicted changes to the workplace following the Covid-19 pandemic. More →
July 13, 2020
There are so many unknowns about the ways in which the Covid-19 pandemic will shape our world in the coming months and years but what it has highlighted are the strengths and weaknesses in the global and UK economy and their implications for the commercial property sector. In its latest white paper, property consultancy and chartered surveyors Bruceshaw examines the macro and micro economic challenges that will shape the property sector for many years to come. More →
July 5, 2020
However much we know about the forces we expect to come into play in our time and however much we understand the various social, commercial, legislative, cultural and economic parameters we expect to direct them, most predictions of the future tend to come out as refractions or extrapolations of the present. This is a fact tacitly acknowledged by George Orwell’s title for Nineteen Eighty-Four, written in 1948, and is always the pinch of salt we can apply to science fiction and most of the predictions we come across. More →
June 30, 2020
In the face of unprecedented health and economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, ‘millennials’ and ‘Gen Zs’ express resolve and a vision to build a better future, a new Deloitte survey claims. The 2020 Deloitte Global Millennial Survey, now in its ninth year, suggests that both generations remain resilient in the face of adversity and are determined to drive positive change in their communities and around the world. More →
August 18, 2020
The challenge for the office is to stay relevant
by Ben Capper • Comment, Workplace design