Employment

When the going gets tough, by Saralyn Chaloner

13 April 2011 | Saralyn Chaloner

With public sector redundancies announced on a daily basis at present, it comes as no surprise that the latest Ipsos MORI research shows almost three in ten public sector workers (28%) are concerned about unemployment. Read more...

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How progressive are public sector pension reforms? By Carl Emmerson

22 March 2011 | Carl Emmerson

Lord Hutton’s review of public service pensions contains a number of recommendations. Perhaps the three most important for both the taxpayer and the members of these schemes are: Read more...

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Job cuts: the collateral damage, by Andrew Jepp

21 March 2011 | Andrew Jepp

The latest wave of labour market figures released by the Office for National Statistics painted a worrying picture of UK unemployment, revealing a decline of 45,000 jobs in the last quarter of 2010. Overall, 111,000 ‘general government’ jobs were lost in 2010, 1.9% of the total. Perhaps even more concerning is that 66,000 of these were in local government. Read more...

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Wake-up call on childcare, by Vidhya Alakeson

16 March 2011 | Vidhya Alakeson

Speaking at the Liberal Democrat’s Spring Conference, Nick Clegg once again took up the cause of hard working families in Britain – his ‘alarm clock Britain’, the people who want to get up and get on. Read more...

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Ditch the Universal Credit, by Patrick Nolan

31 January 2011 | Patrick Nolan

The coalition government plans to replace all existing working age benefits with a single Universal Credit. Last week the Work and Pensions Committee held an oral evidence session on this proposal. I was asked to appear before the committee and explain Reform’s concerns over these plans. Read more...

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General theorising on Keynes, by Tony Dolphin

19 January 2011 | Tony Dolphin

Leading Liberal Democrats, including Vince Cable and David Laws, have been defending the coalition’s policy of substantial public spending cuts in  recent days, in part through an appeal to Keynes. Their central thesis is that the economy will only recover if private investment spending accelerates, that private investment spending will only accelerate if interest rates are low, and that interest rates will only remain low if the government reduces its deficit quickly. Read more...

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Downside doubt on OBR data, by John Hawksworth

30 November 2010 | John Hawksworth

The Office for Budget Responsibility’s autumn economic forecast is an admirably clear and detailed document. As expected, the OBR revised up its GDP growth forecasts for 2010 but revised them down slightly for 2011 and 2012. Read more...

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Northern exposure, by Jenni Viitanen

25 November 2010 | Jenni Viitanen

Last month’s Local Growth White Paper set out a vision for a ‘rebalanced’ economy in the UK, correcting the current version which is over-reliant on the financial sector and the Greater South East. While the white paper talks a good talk in terms of a more evenly shared growth, a closer examination reveals that the outcome of this economic rebalancing act could end up topsy-turvy. Read more...

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Pensions review: no U-turn on Turner, by Nigel Stanley

27 October 2010 | Nigel Stanley

Lord Turner’s Pensions Commission apparently caused the biggest row between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Blair backed Turner and won that fight, and now the coalition has swung behind the reforms too. Read more...

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No CSR magic bullet on jobs, by Paul Swinney

21 October 2010 | Paul Swinney

Yesterday’s Spending Review gave a greater steer on where the Office for Budgetary Responsibility’s forecast of 490,000 public sector job losses will be felt. Some government departments were hit harder than others. And the cuts will not have an even impact across cities either. We showed last year that some cities, such as Newcastle and Swansea, are more vulnerable to public sector job losses than others.  Private sector suppliers and contractors are likely to feel the pain too. Read more...

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