Employment

How much food have we really been stockpiling?

Time out When did British workers start being ‘furloughed’? The word furlough is first recorded in the English language in 1625, believed to be derived from the Dutch verloffe, meaning a leave of absence of a sailor from the navy. It seems to have come back into parlance in Britain thanks to it being used in the US prison system to describe temporary leave for an inmate. It was the title of a 2018 American film in which a female prisoner is allowed out of jail for the weekend to visit her dying mother. The film was later renamed Time Out, perhaps because not everyone knew what ‘furlough’ meant. But

The post-Brexit bounce seems to have stuck, for now

The post-election economic bounce appears to be more than a fluke. Positive news came in waves this week, as data for employment figures, weekly wages and economic activity painted a good picture for newly-Brexited Britain. People are in work and wages are finally back on track. Employment has hit a new record high (76.5 per cent) while unemployment has dropped to a new 44-year low, at 3.8 per cent. Most notably, weekly wages are (finally) back to their pre-financial crash levels ie, the highest since March 2008. And yes, it has taken a very long time get here – it has been the slowest wages recovery in economic history –