Posted By
Katy Jones
17 October 2012
A new report ‘A job in itself: the thankless task for young unemployed people looking for work’, published today ( 17 October) by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation provides a worrying account of the experiences of young jobseekers.
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Posted By
Caroline Davey, Director of Policy, Advice and Communications for Gingerbread
15 October 2012
Throughout this latest party conference season, we’ve been bombarded with speeches and soundbites about the importance of work – getting it, keeping and progressing through it. But while George Osborne issued a “wake-up call” to those he labelled as ‘sleeping off a life on benefits’ in the form of drastic cuts to welfare, and the Prime Minister spoke of an ‘aspiration nation’, the question remained – what about those who want to work, but find the barriers to getting a job impossible to overcome?
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Posted By
Jenny Gulliford
04 October 2012
Today (4 Oct) the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) released the results of a survey of 98 of their member organisations who are sub-contractors within the Work Programme. Their findings were, to say the least, worrying.
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Posted By
Neil Lee
19 September 2012
The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee today released their report into the Youth Contract – the government’s flagship programme to address the problem of youth unemployment. They find that the Youth Contract is a good start – but nowhere near enough to tackle the problem.
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Posted By
Ian Brinkley
21 August 2012
Government ministers have reportedly taken the BBC to task for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the employment figures – a charge hard to fathom given current levels of uncertainty about labour market prospects. At the risk of being officially denounced, it is perfectly legitimate to look beneath the totals – good as they are - and suggest things are not quite as robust as the official view suggests.
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Posted By
Ian Brinkley
17 August 2012
Recent media interest in zero hours contracts has shed some light into a largely forgotten corner of the UK’s flexible labour market. The zero hour contract, in effect, requires the individual to be available for work, but his or her employer are under no obligation to provide work. Some employers see zero hours contracts as a way of ensuring flexibility and remaining competitive in situations where work fluctuates unexpectedly from day to day or week to week. However, some of those on zero hours contracts see them as exploitative, where they bear all the risk and where the balance of interest lies almost entirely with the employer.
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Posted By
Annie Peate
29 May 2012
Fewer than a third of the UK's most influential jobs are held by women, figures compiled by BBC News demonstrate today.
Disappointing indeed but sadly, not a new story.
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Posted By
Philippa Newis, Policy Officer , Gingerbread
21 May 2012
From today (21 May), single parents whose youngest child is five are no longer entitled to receive income support (IS). Instead, they will need to claim jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) or another benefit. This is one of the first provisions of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 to come into force.
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Posted By
Andrew Sissons
21 March 2012
The Chancellor told us that today’s Budget was aimed at “working families”. His Budget speech focused on tax changes to help those on middle and lower incomes, but in doing so he paid less attention to the real issues: growth and jobs.
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Posted By
Ian Brinkley
16 March 2012
A major focus for comments on the latest labour market figures was the much bigger rise in unemployment for women compared with men. Of the 28,000 increase in unemployed by the ILO measure, 22,000 were accounted for by women, with the female unemployment rate rising to 7.7 per cent.
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Posted By
Spencer Thompson
06 March 2012
Yesterday (5 Mar), Tesco boss Philip Clarke announced a shift in the company’s direction. After a poor fourth quarter in 2011, the heavy-hitting supermarket chain is to invest more in the quality of its fresh produce and customer service, as well as in the choice of products on offer. This is an interesting development which, if carried out on a large scale and replicated by other large retailers, may change how we view retail as a sector.
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Posted By
Lizzie Crowley and Dr Paul Sissons
24 February 2012
There has been a huge amount of debate (and confusion) about the Work Experience placements offered to unemployed 16-24 year olds through the government’s Get Britain Working initiative
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Posted By
Nye Cominetti
22 February 2012
For those who can work, secure and lasting employment is surely one of the best routes out of homelessness and poverty. Even if they are given somewhere to live, homeless families and individuals who fail to find work will remain vulnerable - at risk of losing their home again and, at best, reliant on benefits.
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Posted By
Dr Paul Sissons
22 February 2012
Yesterday Nick Clegg announced further details of the NEET prevention strand of the Youth Contract. The £126 million scheme, which will be in England only, will focus on those 16 and 17 year olds with poor qualifications (without a GCSE at grade C or above) who are outside education, employment and training.
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Posted By
Ian Brinkley
16 February 2012
Yesterday’s unemployment figures made grim reading with 2.7 million unemployed on the international standardised measure used by the International Labour Office (ILO). This includes all those who said they had looked for work in the past 4 weeks and were able to start a job in 2 weeks time.
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