February 11, 2019
Zero-hours workers are more than twice as likely to work night shifts than other workers, according to new analysis published by the TUC. The analysis shows that on a range of key measures, zero-hours workers are having a tougher time those in secure employment. The TUC is now calling on the Government to ban zero hours contracts and do more to help people who work anti-social hours. (more…)
February 1, 2019
A new report (registration needed), based on a survey of UK employers and employees, claims to reveal a significant and increasing gap between employees’ experience of being employed and what employers believe this experience to be. Barnett Waddingham’s four research papers claims that while the majority of employers (61 percent) believe the levels of wellbeing in their organisation to be high, only 19 percent of the employees surveyed report high wellbeing. According to the authors, this suggests employers do not sufficiently know or understand the needs of their people.
January 29, 2019
Self-employed women, who earn an average of 16 per cent less than self-employed men, should be supported with greater training and development opportunities, a new report has said. The government should also remove any barriers preventing young women embarking on apprenticeships, according to the report published by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Women and Work. The report, How to Recruit Women for the 21st Century, is the product of a year’s research by the APPG, which is jointly chaired by MPs Jess Phillips and Gillian Keegan.
January 25, 2019
People who involuntarily lose their job early in their career have poorer health in later life, according to new findings from the University of Kent in the UK and the University of Bamberg in Germany. Researchers, including Dr Olena Nizalova from the Centre for Health Service Studies (CHSS) within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR) at Kent, set out to establish what the long-term implications of enforced unemployment are on individuals over the course of their life, particularly in later life.
January 22, 2019
Although executives have high expectations for the impact that AI will have on their businesses according to Cognizant’s new report, ‘Making AI Responsible – and Effective, only half of companies have policies and procedures in place to identify and address the ethical considerations of its applications and implementations. The study analyses the responses of almost 1,000 executives across the financial services, technology, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, insurance and media & entertainment industries in Europe and the US. The research suggests that business leaders are positive about the importance and potential benefits of AI. Roughly two- thirds (63 percent) say that AI is extremely or very important to their companies today, and 84 percent expect this will be the case three years from now. Lower costs, increased revenues and the ability to introduce new products or services, or to diversify were cited as the key advantages for the future.
January 17, 2019
There is a ‘significant risk’ that the reporting ethnicity pay levels could be ‘counterproductive’ unless key differences between it and gender pay are recognised, said the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) in its response to the UK Government’s consultation on ethnicity pay reporting. Although the IES supports the government’s proposals to introduce mandatory reporting of ethnicity pay gap information, it suggests that cultural and practical barriers to collecting and reporting ethnicity data are greater than for gender pay. More time and greater government support are therefore needed to prepare for these changes. The consultation response voices specific concerns that measures to increase the recruitment of under-represented groups, for example through apprenticeships or paid internships, could serve to widen pay gaps initially. This could inadvertently discourage employers from taking positive action to improve their ethnic diversity. Reporting arrangements therefore need to also take account of changes in the levels of employment participation for different ethnic minority groups, as well as their pay.
January 8, 2019
The Northern Ireland office market had a record year in 2018, with a 100 percent increase in take-up, according to the latest figures from CBRE. The Northern Ireland (NI) office sector enjoyed its most successful year on record with 885,023 sq ft of take-up reported across 84 transactions, more than double that achieved last year. Notable office deals completed in 2018 included the PwC move to Merchant Square, Northern Ireland Civil Service at 9 Lanyon Place, Allstate at Mays Meadow, TLT at River House and Baker McKenzie at City Quays 2, which is part of Belfast’s City Quays mixed-use regeneration project. However, according to CBRE’s Real Estate Outlook report, the office market in NI is hampered by a severe lack of investment deals in the face of ongoing local, national and international political uncertainty. This means that while the real estate market in Northern Ireland generally has performed well in 2018, the investment sector experienced a decrease in activity as a resulting knock-on effect of the current political situation locally at Stormont as well as ongoing Brexit negotiations.
January 7, 2019
Governments need to do more to help workers and firms adapt to the fast-changing world of work and drive inclusive growth, according to the new OECD Jobs Strategy. New evidence in the report claims that countries that promote job quantity, quality and inclusiveness – such as Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – perform better than those which focus predominantly on market flexibility. While flexibility and adaptability are essential to stimulate the creation of high-quality jobs in an ever more dynamic environment, the gains and costs need to be fairly shared between businesses and workers, according to the OECD.
January 7, 2019
A new report from the World Bank has call for more investment in people to prepare them for the economies of the future. The 2019 World Development report (WDR) “The Changing Nature of Work” claims that digital technologies are driving the demand for advanced cognitive skills, socio-behavioral skills, and adaptability in labour markets. The digital economy also presents an opportunity to create more jobs.
January 7, 2019
Over half of workers (53 percent) believe that getting the right people with the right skills will be the biggest issue faced by their workplace in the year ahead. This is according to research published by Acas today, which commissioned YouGov to find out what UK employees identified as the most important workplace issues in the year ahead. The other two top issues identified were technological change (36 percent) and productivity (36 percent). Other issues identified by participants in the poll included fit and healthy staff (18 percent) and Equality and Fairness (17 percent). Acas Chief Exec, Susan Clews, said: “Employees feel that getting workers with the right skills is a key concern in the year ahead. This could be attributed to uncertainty around our relationship with the EU at the moment or general concerns around skills shortages.
December 19, 2018
The Government has agreed to work with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to introduce a statutory code of practice to tackle sexual harassment at work. It also agreed that non-disclosure agreements require better regulation and a clearer explanation of the rights that a worker cannot abrogate by signing one and will consult on how best to achieve this and enforce any new provisions. It also agrees that regulators should make it clear that workplace sexual harassment is unacceptable, and that sexual harassment should be taken into account when considering the fitness and propriety of the individuals and employers they regulate.
December 19, 2018
The two most important barriers to working for those in their 50s and early to mid-60s are health and caring; according to the latest analysis from the ONS. Living longer: Fitting it all in – working, caring and health in later life, advises that although people in their 50s and early 60s have a good level of general health the prevalence of health problems increases over this age range and impacts on the likelihood of being in paid work. Of those potential older workers who are out of work (but would like to work), 38 percent of men and 28 percent of women are unemployed. Women are more likely to be looking after home or family than men (19 percent and 6 percent). Over a third of people aged 50 to 64 years are out of work because they are sick or disabled – with ill health the main barrier to working for both men (37 percent) and women (35 percent).
