Posted By
Andrew Sissons
07 February 2012
British manufacturing is in a very delicate place at the moment. The last three months of 2011 saw a contraction in the sector, dashing hopes that manufacturing would lead the UK out of recession. Part of this gloom is a direct product of the Eurozone crisis, because manufacturing depends on exports, and Europe is our biggest trading partner.
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Posted By
Andrew Sissons
02 February 2012
Facebook’s stock market flotation is a big deal. The social network is one of the world’s most iconic companies, and it plays a prominent role in many of our lives, but up until now we’ve known precious little about how successful Facebook is as a business. Last night’s announcement changed all that.
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Posted By
Spencer Thompson
31 January 2012
Today’s downgrading of many vocational qualifications, removing them from school league tables, should not mask the fact many of them provide real value to students, employers and the wider economy.
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Posted By
Charles Levy
30 January 2012
Today’s figures from UCAS show that 42,038 fewer English applicants applied for UK undergraduate courses starting this year compared to last, a fall of 9.9%. At any time this would be cause for concern – we have consistently demonstrated that as our economy recovers and grows it will create an expanded demand for graduates. But, this year there is an extra worry since 2012 will be the first year that dramatically increased fees will apply for higher education.
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Posted By
Benjamin Reid
26 January 2012
In a world where you can download and print out a range of operational weapons at home, it is appropriate that today the Coalition government announced that one of the new ‘Catapult Centres’ (the entities formally known as Technology Innovation Centres) will be focused on technology transfer for the ‘Connected Digital Economy’.
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Posted By
Joanna Massie
26 January 2012
In a bid to compete in the gleaming age of the modern-day internet, Blockbusters has released a series of ‘exclusives’ – new movies which, for two weeks only, will be for Blockbusters’ users’ eyes only – but only if you live close enough to a Blockbusters to rent the disc, since they conspicuously haven’t adopted a streaming service.
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Posted By
Andrew Sissons
24 January 2012
You can safely expect to hear a lot about the economy tomorrow, as we get a first estimate of whether the economy grew or shrunk during the last three months of 2011.
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Posted By
Prof Stephen Bevan
24 January 2012
You could be forgiven for being unfamiliar with Section 953(b) of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In fact, if you are familiar with it, you really should get out more.
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Posted By
Ksenia Zheltoukova
18 January 2012
On Blue Monday (16 January) The Work Foundation discussed the dread workers face on the most depressing day of the year. It was an interesting debate in which Mind’s Emma Mamo called for the cultural silence around mental health in the workplace to change.
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Posted By
Stephan Bevan
16 January 2012
Amid all the talk of ‘Good Capitalism’ it was only a matter of time before proposals to re-invigorate share ownership among UK employees were dusted off again. The rationale is clear. Executive pay, which in too many cases appears to bear no relation to the performance of the business, is widely regarded as being out of control.
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Posted By
Katherine Jones
13 January 2012
Rallying cries to knuckle down and work harder are a common reaction to difficult economic times. In an era of squeezed incomes and precarious employment situations many UK workers would think twice before cutting back their hours,
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Posted By
Spencer Thompson
11 January 2012
We should applaud the education secretary’s plans, announced today, to dramatically overhaul the provision of computer science education in schools.
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Posted By
Professor Stephen Bevan
10 January 2012
Ed Miliband’s speech today re-emphasises the need to place fairness and business ethics at the centre of what has been called ‘good capitalism’. These sentiments have been echoed today by commentators like Polly Toynbee and, as far back as the mid-nineties, by our very own Will Hutton in his book The State We’re In.
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Posted By
Stephen Bevan
10 January 2012
It’s only Tuesday and already there have been several angry exchanges between researchers on the impact of migration on UK unemployment.
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Posted By
Dr Paul Sissons
10 January 2012
Skills are the cornerstone of modern economies. They are critical for national economic growth and prosperity, and are central to individual life chances and social mobility. But, do we always develop and use our collective skills in the most efficient and beneficial way?
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