Search Results for: economic

March 8, 2018

UK women still feel held back by motherhood and flexible work penalty

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, News, Wellbeing

Four in ten (44 percent) women in the UK feel nervous about the impact starting a family might have on their career and 48 percent of new mothers felt overlooked for promotions and special projects upon their return to work. This is according to a new PwC report, launched to mark International Women’s Day, which surveyed over 3,600 professional women (293 in the UK) across different sectors to find out about their career development experiences and aspirations. The report claims that UK women still perceive a motherhood and flexibility penalty in the workplace. Over a third (36 percent) surveyed say they feel that taking advantage of work life balance and flexibility programmes has negative career consequences. The report – Time to talk: what has to change for women at work – claims that women are confident, ambitious and ready for what’s next, but many don’t trust what their employers are telling them about career development and promotion.

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March 8, 2018

Commercial property sector worth £4.8bn to Scottish economy

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

The Scottish commercial property sector contributes almost £4.8 billion to the Scottish economy and supports more than 92,000 jobs, according to a new report. Compiled by the University of Strathclyde’s Fraser of Allander Institute under commission by the Scottish Property Federation (SPF) its findings include a comprehensive look at the potential economic impact of new commercial work. In total, the commercial real estate element of Scotland’s construction industry has a direct impact of around £2.4bn to Scotland’s economy, however taking into account the additional spill-over effects of the industry, the sector is estimated to have a total impact of around £4.8bn.

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March 5, 2018

Automation will lead to greater inequality rather than job losses

by Neil Franklin • AI, News, Technology

The total level of wages associated with jobs that have the technical potential to be automated in the UK is £290 billion per year, which represents 33 percent of all wages and earnings from labour in the economy, according to a new report published by IPPR for the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice. The report further claims that low-wage jobs have more potential to be automated than high-wage jobs and so it’s not just automation’s impact on the number of jobs that need to be considered but the impact on inequality. If automation leads to lower average wages or working hours, or loss of jobs in aggregate, a significant amount of national income could be transferred from wages to profits. And while increased automation of activities will replace some workers and labour earnings, employment and wages will rise in other areas of the labour market due to higher output and productivity, offsetting some of the original £290 billion lost but increasing pay inequality.

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March 5, 2018

UK progress on opportunities for women in the workplace slows

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

New PwC research claims that the UK is not making progress fast enough to improve female economic empowerment in the workplace. Despite improvements since 2000, these gains have been outpaced by other countries’ efforts, according to the report. In particular, slow progress in closing the gender pay gap, coupled with a persistent low share of females in full-time employment, has put the brakes on the UK making bigger strides towards gender equality in the workplace. The latest Women in Work Index claims the UK has fallen slightly from 14th to 15th place in a ranking of 33 OECD countries based on five key indicators of female economic empowerment. Although labour market conditions for women improved, the UK was outpaced by better performance from other OECD countries. Since 2000, the UK’s position has improved from 17th place and it compares well to other G7 economies, being second only to Canada. The Nordic countries continue to lead the Index – with Iceland, Sweden and Norway rated as the top three countries for opportunities for women in the workplace.

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March 1, 2018

Prospects for UK commercial property continue to improve, claims report

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

The latest edition of the Investment Property Forum’s (IPF) UK commercial real estate consensus report claims that the commercial property sector’s sentiment for the current year continues to improve. In its latest report, IPF said the “outlook for 2018 has improved over the three months since the last survey” was conducted, with average rental and capital value growth rates increasing in virtually all sectors. It claims that the rental value growth average forecast has risen to 0.8 percent from 0.4 percent three months ago. Also, the average capital value growth rate has now increased to -0.2 percent from -0.7 percent in November with industrial growth now expected to be 4.0 percent from 2.7 percent in the last survey.

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February 28, 2018

Report identifies hundred greenest cities in the world (and not one is in the UK)

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, Environment, News

A new report claims that there are now over 100 greenest cities worldwide who derive at least 70 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. The report from CDP claims that 40 of these now generate all of their energy in this way, including Basel and Reykjavik. No UK cities appear on the list although over 80 UK towns and cities have committed themselves to run on 100 percent clean energy by 2050, according to local government campaign group UK100.

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February 28, 2018

Report outlines the impact of universities on regional economies and entrepreneurship

by Neil Franklin • News, Public Sector

Although universities contribute to one in every hundred new business births in the UK, but 35 percent of universities did not contribute to the production of a single graduate start-up last year, according to a new report from Localis. It claims that while there are pockets of excellence in the way universities support enterprise and entrepreneurship across the country, too many of them are doing too little. Published in partnership with University College London (UCL) and the University of Huddersfield (UoH), the report explores what more can be done to encourage university entrepreneurial activity and its role in local economies.

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February 28, 2018

Modest growth in UK construction activity is driven by commercial office projects

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Construction activity in the UK has stabilised after a prolonged period of decline, according to the latest JLL and Glenigan UK Commercial Construction Activity Index. Key findings for the last quarter of 2017 show an overall increase in construction activity for the second consecutive quarter, driven mainly by commercial office developments. This follows overall growth of 7.9 percent in the third quarter of 2017, halting a sharp decline seen since mid-2015. Highlighting movement across different sectors, growth in office construction was up 11.2 percent to £4.5 billion, education (up 12.0 percent to £3.5 billion) and community (up 19.9 percent to £0.6 billion) sectors.

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February 23, 2018

Diversity shown to help drive business performance but discrimination is still widespread

by Sara Bean • News, Workplace

The economic cost of workplace discrimination to the UK Economy is £127 billion a year, claims new research. Of the £127 billion, £123 billion is due to gender discrimination, £2.6 billion as a result of discrimination against ethnic minorities and £2 billion due to discrimination as a result of sexual orientation. These are the claims of a new report commissioned by INvolve, a membership organisation that champions holistic diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and Cebr, an economics consultancy which analysed over 500 workplaces uncovered a significant positive correlation between diversity and financial performance.

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February 22, 2018

Occupiers incorporating third-party agile space into their real estate strategy

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

Corporate real estate departments need to become more effective partners in the agile transformation of their broader organizations., claims a new survey conducted by CBRE, in partnership with CoreNet Global. When describing Portfolio Agility, i.e. the ability to rapidly adapt, scale and reposition the organization’s real estate portfolio to support shifting enterprise needs, 67 percent consider portfolio agility as the most important type of agility for business success, yet only 14 percent consider themselves highly agile in this area. The most prevalent portfolio agility practices included negotiating flexible space options in the lease, seeking shorter and/or more flexible lease terms, supporting an enterprise-wide flex-work program and delivering free address work environments. The report states that new workplace guidelines for efficiency have altered the way companies plan for density and more occupiers are incorporating third-party ‘agile space’ into their overall real estate strategy.

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February 22, 2018

The UK needs a new approach to low pay, equality and flexible working

by Neil Franklin • News, Workplace

A new research paper from the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) claims to identify areas where employers and policymakers should act to reinvigorate their pay and rewards practices to improve employee engagement and productivity. According to the IES, with the likely intensification of current recruitment shortages, skills gaps and the fall in living standards as the UK leaves the European Union, the paper argues that both employers and policymakers should act on three key areas – low pay, gender pay and total rewards – to help halt the relative decline of the UK’s already below-par productivity performance.

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February 22, 2018

Report calls for better understanding of the future risks of tech to workplace wellbeing

by Sara Bean • AI, News, Technology, Wellbeing, Workplace

In a workplace dominated by insecurity, gig work and intelligent machines we need to improve our understanding of their potential impact on health, safety and wellbeing claims a new report. Future risk: Impact of work on employee health, safety and wellbeing, commissioned by the British Safety Council from RobertsonCooper researchers argues that the public debate on the future of work has centred so far on the likely shape of the workplace and its implications for both employers and employees. There has been far less focus on what this might mean for workers’ health, safety and wellbeing, with discussions centring on the present, rather than preparing us for the challenges of the future. Yet, the impact of automation on the workplace will be more fundamental than is commonly understood, with 11 million jobs predicted to be lost in the next 20 years in the UK. As we are already seeing with some ‘gig’ working, it may undermine such basic human needs as social identity, economic security and a sense of belonging. The report reviews the existing literature on this subject and makes a number of recommendations.