Young people leaving education and looking for work may be missing out on potential employment opportunities by failing to consider Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the advantages they offer, new research from Santander UK claims. ‘Gen Z’ and Millennials do not believe SMEs offer the same job security or salary as large businesses, meaning just a third (35 percent) of young people leaving education in 2018 want to work for smaller employer, and an even smaller proportion, just one in six (18 percent), want to work for a start-up or micro business. The most popular career aspirations for Generation Z and Millennials are to work for a large firm (51 percent), the public sector (51 percent) or a global multinational (49 percent), because of a perceived lack of job security (56 percent). There is also the belief that SMEs offer a lower salary (46 percent) and fewer opportunities for progression than large companies (33 percent). Yet the majority (70 percent) of SMEs are actively recruiting for entry level roles, whether that be graduates (43 percent), further education leavers (36 percent) or school leavers (35 percent).

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The CIPD is calling on the government to ease restriction on immigrants from non EU countries, in the wake of the publication of new official figures which show how the number of EU citizens moving to the UK has decreased over the last year. Earlier this month, the CBI issued a similar plea as fears mount over the impact of Brexit on the UK’s skills base.

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Securing employment rights for workers must be one of the key priorities of any Brexit deal, according to a fifth of finance professionals surveyed by REED. The recruitment agency asked almost 800 senior finance professionals about company preparations for leaving the EU, finding that only prioritising a free trade deal for the UK (31 per cent) received more votes than securing employment rights (20 per cent). Finance professionals gave considerably less backing for prioritising membership of the single market (18 per cent), self-determined UK law (10 per cent), the customs union (10 per cent) and border controls (10 per cent).

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A noticeable fall in the flow of EU nationals into the UK has coincided with a drop in the quantity and suitability of job applicants being reported by employers, the latest quarterly Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD and the Adecco Group has revealed. The data suggests that while the short-term outlook for employment remains strong, labour and skills shortages are finally starting to bite, with evidence that the number of applicants per vacancy has dropped across all roles (low, medium and high-skill) since summer 2017. This strong demand for labour is finally increasing recruitment pressures for employers, exacerbated by a ‘supply shock’ of far fewer EU nationals coming into the UK. According to the latest official data, the number of EU-born workers in the UK increased by just 7,000 between Q1 2017 and Q1 2018, compared with an increase of 148,000 from Q1 2016 to Q1 2017. This represents a fall of 95 percent and has fed into a tightening of the labour market. The report also found that while wage growth for the wider workforce is set to remain at around 2 percent for the foreseeable future, new starters and key staff may be more likely to be getting a salary increase.

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The talents of more than a million people aged over 50 who want to work are being wasted because of discrimination, bias and outdated employment practices, claims a new report from the UK government. The report from The Women and Equalities Committee also concludes that Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are failing to enforce the law on age discrimination and must be clearer that prejudice, unconscious bias and casual ageism in the workplace are all unlawful under the Equality Act 2010. Although the Committee concludes that the Government’s employer-led approach has its advantages, it does not present a strong enough challenge to discriminatory practices or attitudes.

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