Search Results for: inequality

April 3, 2017

Brexit should be a chance for the UK to enshrine employment rights ⁰

by Chris Rowley • Comment, Legal news, Workplace

Exploitative employment contracts continue to receive widespread media attention – from shaming the businesses who use them, to prompting questions regarding workers’ rights in Parliament. In light of the Prime Minister officially signing Article 50, to trigger the formal start of the Brexit negotiation period, now is a good time to consider how this will affect the UK’s tarnished relationship with zero-hours contracts? Zero-hours contracts, and their equivalents, are demeaning policies, often backed-up by capricious management practices. They are non-negotiable, offering draconian flexibility in numerical, temporal and spatial terms and conditions. But would continuing with EU membership have made a difference? The evidence reveals otherwise.

March 27, 2017

Up to a third of UK jobs to be displaced by robots in near future ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Technology

The latest report to examine the disruptive potential of robots in the workplace has been published by PwC as part of the firm’s regular Economic Outlook series. The study claims that up to 30 percent of existing UK jobs will be susceptible to automation by robots and Artificial Intelligence by the early 2030s, although in many cases the nature of jobs will change rather than disappear and the change will increase productivity and wealth. This is lower than the US at 38 percent and Germany at 35 percent, but higher than Japan at 21 percent. The report looks in detail at the composition of jobs in different industry sectors and occupations, using machine learning techniques to model the potential impact of AI in the future based on OECD data. The likelihood of automation appears highest in sectors such as transport, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail, and lower in education, health and social work.

February 22, 2017

MPs criticise the Government’s response to gender pay gap recommendations ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, Legal news, News, Workplace

If the Government will fail to achieve its goal of eliminating the gender pay gap in a generation if it continues to ignore the evidence which it is being given, a cross-party committee of MPs has said. The Women and Equalities Committee is disappointed with the Government’s response to a series of recommendations it put forward last March, which it says shows that the Government is not effectively tackling the structural causes of the gender pay gap. While the Government’s recognises the business case for reducing the gender pay gap and acknowledges structural factors contributing to the pay gap, including women doing jobs for which they are overqualified, concentration in part-time work, and being penalised for taking time out of work to raise children; it rejects most of the Committee’s seventeen evidence-based recommendations for addressing these issues. Instead it highlights gender pay gap reporting, as “key to accelerating progress,” and maintains that current policies on Shared Parental Leave, flexible working, and supporting women back into work are adequate.

February 10, 2017

Gender pay gap for Millennials is closing, but for the wrong reasons ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Millennial men are earning less than Generation Y did in their earlier careers reflecting a shift towards young men doing low paid work traditionally carried out by women. In his Grigor McClelland lecture on 21st century inequality to Manchester Business School yesterday, Resolution Foundation Director Torsten Bell drew on upcoming research for the Foundation’s Intergenerational Commission on the labour market prospects for younger generations, which highlights the stark gender differences on inter-generational progress on pay. According to the data, Millennial men have earned less than Generation X men in every year between the ages of 22 and 30, resulting in a cumulative pay deficit during their 20s of £12,500. In contrast millennial women have experienced neither generational pay progress or decline. This has narrowed the gender pay gap for millennials, but for the wrong reasons, a shift towards lower-skilled jobs, often part-time, which have stunted the pay progress of young men.

January 12, 2017

New report highlights potential of technology to wipe out jobs and businesses ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News

Unregulated technological progress is one of the greatest threats to global prosperity, peace and stability, claims a new report from the World Economic Forum. The WEF’s Global Risks Report, published before 3,000 business leaders and politicians gather for its annual conference in Davos, claims that regulation is trailing far behind technological innovation and that without action, it could lead to the destruction of untold jobs and businesses and catalyse major social upheaval. Economic inequality, societal polarisation and intensifying environmental dangers are the top three trends that will shape global developments over the next 10 years, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2017 claims. The report says that collaborative action by world leaders will be urgently needed to avert further hardship and volatility in the coming decade.

January 9, 2017

Global lack of female leadership, despite benefits to companies’ performance ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Gender inequality remains high around the world – despite the fact that new research suggests how female leadership increases companies’ performance. A new report published by IZA World of Labor looks at the reasons for the persistence of wage and leadership gender gaps and their causes and consequences and emphasizes the beneficial role of female leaders in reducing gender inequality. The report claims that gender wage gaps and women’s under representation in leadership positions exist at remarkably similar magnitudes across countries at all levels of income per capita. In a new IZA World of Labor report the economist Mario Macis of Johns Hopkins University, USA summarizes recent research which shows that although women in many developed countries have reached parity with men in terms of formal educational attainment and employment, earning disparities between the genders are actually greater in richer countries.

January 4, 2017

Millennial women predicted to earn less than male counterparts over their careers ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

It has been suggested before that the gender pay gap is a reflection of what happens to women when they become parents – and a new piece of research backs up this theory by revealing an enduring pay penalty associated with having children; which, unless tackled this will mean that current and future generations of working women will continue to face a significant life earnings penalty. According to a new analysis published today (Wednesday) by the Resolution Foundation as part of its Intergenerational Commission, while the gender pay gap for millennials in their 20s has halved in a generation to just 5 percent, much of that progress looks set to be undone with early signs showing that the gender pay gap continues to escalate as women enter their 30s and 40s. This suggests that millennial women will still earn significantly less than their male counterparts over their careers.

December 22, 2016

Getting ahead at work: social class divide, power and office politics ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • News, Workplace

A new study from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business has found that class-based inequality in the workplace persists not only because of external factors like bias and glass ceilings, but also because of structural factors that discourage people from lower social classes from seeking positions of power in the first place. The paper, co-authored by Peter Belmi of the Darden School of Business and Kristin Laurin of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, claims that most people believe that getting ahead requires a mixture of pro-social behavior – such as being competent, hard-working, and a team player; and political behaviour – such as being outspoken, flattering, and treating others as “resources”. According to the research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, inequality begins to thrive in the disparity between which groups are actually willing to put both behaviours into practice. Even though everyone derides political angling, it turns out that relatively high-class individuals are still willing to play the game to get ahead. Not so with lower-class individuals.

November 14, 2016

Business association calls for action on high cost of childcare ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News

The British Chambers of Commerce and Middlesex University, have published a new survey to gauge the opinion of business leaders on the cost and availability of childcare and its impact on the workforce. The survey of businesses claims that a third of firms (33 percent) regard the availability of childcare as a key issue in recruiting and retaining staff. The survey of more than 1,600 business leaders across the UK also claims that over a quarter (28 percent) of firms have seen a reduction of working hours by staff due to the cost of childcare, while nearly 1 in 10 (9 percent) have seen employees leave their business. Although the survey suggests that nearly 40 percent of businesses already view government plans to double the availability of free childcare next year as likely to have a positive impact on their business, the BCC is calling on government to go further. It says the administration should consider the costs and benefits of a universal entitlement up until school entry, which would help more firms retain and promote productive staff, and help working parents progress.

October 27, 2016

Progress towards closing gender pay gap slows around the world ⁰

by Sara Bean • Legal news, News, Workplace

Women across the globe earn on average just over half of what men earn despite, on average, working longer hours when taking paid and unpaid work into account. The world is facing an acute misuse of talent by not acting faster to tackle this gender inequality, which could put economic growth at risk and deprive economies of the opportunity to develop, warns the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2016, which is published today. The latest edition of the annual benchmarking exercise that measures progress towards parity between men and women in four areas: Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, Economic Opportunity and Political Empowerment finds that progress towards parity in the key economic pillar has slowed dramatically with the gap – which stands at 59 percent – now larger than at any point since 2008. Aside from salary, another persistent challenge is stagnant labour force participation, with the global average for women standing at 54 percent, compared to 81 percent for men. The UK is ranked 20th overall in the global index and of those countries in Western Europe, the UK falls in the bottom half of the table. In respect of economic participation and opportunity, the UK is ranked 53.

October 12, 2016

Flexible hours key to achieving gender balance in finance sector ⁰

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

Improvements in flexible working are among the key steps being taken to help achieve gender balance within the financial services sector, according to the UK Treasury. Financial services is the country’s highest paid sector but has the widest gender pay gap, at 39.5 percent, compared with 19.2 percent across the economy. The ‘Women in Finance Charter’, was set up by the Treasury earlier this year to publish progress on gender balance annually and reports that of the 72 firms who signed the charter, 60 have now committed to having at least 30 percent of women in senior roles by 2021. Alongside gender diversity targets, these firms have set out strategies for how they’ll hit these targets, including improving flexible working, making recruitment gender neutral and distributing high profile work more fairly.

March 12, 2016

Office redesign a priority + Menstrual leave debate + Nine workplace trends ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, Property, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s Insight Newsletter; Mark Eltringham weighs in on the flexible working/menstrual leave debate; Tricia McCall looks at the way the latest workplace designs are influencing the classroom. We learn about the nine workplace trends that managers should address; that staff believe that 91 percent of firms won’t be competitive by 2020 and that a majority of managers see redesigning their organisation as their most important priority. In news – the Government fails to deliver on technology; London occupiers will pay just for a view; and the CIPD warns that not enough organisations are taking action to address the causes of gender inequality. Download our latest Insight Briefing, produced in partnership with Connection, on how the boundless office can be freed from the shackles of time and place and access the latest issue of Work&Place. Visit our new events page, follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.