Brace yourself, but I don’t mind Michelle Obama. Sure, she might prattle on about the evils of white, corporate America too much for my liking, but the former First Lady certainly doesn’t suffer fools gladly, and this was on full display at this week’s SXSW festival in London. Addressing the crowd, Obama warned young people […]
Youth unemployment is one of those issues that politicians across the spectrum agree is a scandal. The debate tends to focus on training programmes, welfare incentives, employer subsidies. These things matter. But a report published today by the Jobs Foundation points to something more fundamental: the businesses that would employ young people are not growing […]
Too many of Britain’s next generation are in danger of being cut adrift from the world of work. The latest figures show that one in eight of those aged 16-24 are currently not in education, employment or training – or NEETs. Such a figure – which equates to more 957,000 people – has been unimaginable […]
Today’s labour market statistics are the usual jumble of sometimes conflicting indicators, based on different periods and using different methodologies. However, it is clear that the unemployment rate is continuing its slow upward creep, with the overall rate now at 5.2%, the highest since the Covid pandemic (when an understandable blip reversed a long trend […]
Britain is a world leader! Nope, not in economic growth, opportunity or general happiness, but in the size of its human resources industry. Just when it seems as though the 2020s couldn’t get any more joyless, Blighty outdoes itself. A new report from the think tank Policy Exchange exposes just how large and overbearing our […]
‘We came into work on a manifesto to make work pay’, Jo Stevens, Labour’s Welsh Secretary, told Radio 4 this week. ‘And that’s exactly what we’re doing.’ Well, Ms. Stevens, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has a different story to tell. Youth unemployment is now at its highest level in 11 years. Almost one […]
Ministers have tried for months to hand-wave away Britain’s increasingly desperate jobs figures with unconvincing excuses. ‘It’s AI, it’s global factors, it’s post-pandemic adjustment, it’s bad data,’ go the refrains of the unlucky few foisted on the media round for the monthly ONS release. The increasingly obscure ministers Labour HQ have put up may play […]
While the Covid pandemic was a pretty universally horrible experience, one of the few positives to emerge from it was the rise of working from home. For a great many people, no longer having to commute into the office five days a week has been a great boon. However, there are a certain number of […]
Before Covid, flexible work was an unusual perk. But as lockdown upended our way of life, the drive for working when, where and how an employee chooses accelerated. Insofar as there has been a return to the pre-pandemic era, it has been limited. In some quarters, the idea that workers might be obliged to follow […]
When Labour took office in July 2024, Britain’s unemployment rate stood at 4.2%. Today it is 5.1%, the highest level since early 2021 and rising in a way that should trouble any Chancellor, especially one who has produced two tax-raising Budgets in succession. Ministers say the labour market is simply normalising, but the pattern now […]
This article is the latest in a fortnightly series of policy proposals from John Penrose and the Centre for Small State Conservatives. You can read the previous instalments here. This week, the Government announced a multi-million-pound boost for apprenticeships in an attempt to improve young people’s life chances with a smoother transition from school into education, work […]
Time and time again, politicians will promise new ‘rights’. These rights are usually in the form of new regulations, and are generally taken at face value, with the smiling faces of the beneficiaries being propagated as proof of its success. The French economist Bastiat called this the ‘seen’ vs the ‘unseen’. The ‘seen’ is what […]
Earlier this month, in an attempt to gain credibility and trust from SMEs, Reform UK hosted a press conference to set out its priorities for small businesses in Britain. Some 300 small and medium-sized business owners attended the event, which also drew support from Checkatrade founder Kevin Byrne and Tory donor Anthony Bamford of JCB. […]
It is a familiar lament of British policymakers that the UK invents everything and profits from nothing. The world wide web, nuclear energy, the ARM processors that now power every iPhone and many AI data centres – not to mention railways. All were invented in the United Kingdom; all are now largely scaled and monetised […]
A generation of Britons are being cut off from the wider world. Last month, it was reported that two thirds of Gen Z sometimes stay inside for days on end. We at the Centre for Social Justice have previously found that seven in ten 18- to 24-year-olds feel lonely. Now new ONS data shows us […]
One can’t help but feel a bit sorry for Labour’s youth cohort. Having been born in the dying days of New Labour and come of age during 14 years of Conservative government, last year’s election victory was the culmination of an adolescence spent leafleting, campaigning and most painfully, waiting. Yet for those who attended the […]
When I co-founded the Jobs Foundation, our initial idea was borne out of something simple: to champion business as the most potent poverty-busting tool that our society has. As many of us appreciate, a job isn’t just about a pay packet, but about dignity, aspiration and the chance to build a better future – which […]
Whitehall is losing over four million working days a year to staff sickness: absenteeism in the Civil Service is on course to surpass its previous peak of 8.3 days per employee, with the Department for Transport already averaging 9.2 days lost per head. For taxpayers, this is not simply an HR statistic, but a bill […]
Labour’s long march against British prosperity continues. Indeed, the last week has seen a deluge of statistics that read like the worst school report imaginable. Figures published in the last few days had Labour trailing behind Reform UK in almost every poll. The proportion of the public with a positive view of Keir Starmer has […]
Nurses have now decided to follow the example of resident doctors, and reject the Government’s latest pay offer. The Royal College of Nursing announced this week that 91% of its members voted against accepting a 3.6% pay rise. Resident doctors were offered a 5.4% pay increase but went on strike for a 29% pay increase […]
The Government came into office hoping that by boosting economic growth it could maintain and expand welfare provision and pursue its many other objectives without excessive levels of taxation. It has not so far been successful; indeed, GDP appears to have fallen in the last two months. The UK’s poor growth performance in recent years […]
This publication of this week’s Industrial Strategy, and the first of five associated ‘Sector Plans’, marks the latest step in delivering on the Government’s ambitions to boost economic growth. There is much in the papers published that seems sound, including the importance of unlocking investment in skills, R&D and infrastructure – all of which are […]
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