Youth unemployment
Tory battle of the letters intensifies
It’s the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice this week, so perhaps it’s the passionate letter from Darcy to Elizabeth that’s inspired such an enthusiastic burst of letter-writing… Continue reading
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The Dalkey Archive Press responds
Following my last post about the Dalkey Archive Press advert for unpaid interns I received an email from publisher John O’Brien. I think it sheds some interesting light on the… Continue reading
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Private sector growth pushes employment to new record high
The number of people in work in the UK hit 29.6 million in August-October – the most ever — according to today’s figures from the Office for National Statistics. So… Continue reading
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Jobs figures show a move in the right direction
Recently, we’ve been used to the economic figures being either bad news or mixed news. So today’s employment stats come as a welcome surprise: it’s almost all good news. They show… Continue reading
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A messy end to a Royal era
Who said posh youths don’t riot? Head down to South Kensington tonight for some Bullingdon-style antics: the nightclub Boujis is inviting loyal regulars to smash the place up before closing… Continue reading
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Let’s get to work getting our veterans back to work
The cutting of 17 army units by 2020 was never going to be popular. It is over-dramatic to suggest we now have a self-defence force rather than an army, but… Continue reading
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Why this government is not down with the kids
Hardly a day goes by without more bad news on youth unemployment. The latest figures on NEETs (a horrible de-humanising term for school leavers who are not in education, employment… Continue reading
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The war against the young
At the time of the student protests, I laid out in the Observer the demographic facts that push unscrupulous politicians into picking on the young. Their political vulnerability is the… Continue reading
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A significant moment for the minimum wage
Here are some numbers for you: the adult rate of the national minimum wage will be raised, this October, by 11p to £6.19 an hour, but the separate rates for… Continue reading
11 CommentsLabour miss out the details
Labour’s launch of its new youth jobs policy has been rather overshadowed by Harriet Harman’s inability to explain the costing behind the policy on the Daily Politics earlier: not a… Continue reading
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Unemployment’s high, but at least it’s stopped rising
So, new jobs figures out today. Which do you want first: the bad news, or the kind-of-alright news? The bad news is that employment’s showing no signs of growth: the… Continue reading
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How can employment and unemployment go up at the same time?
The employment level has risen since the election, according to today’s figures — albeit only slightly, from 29.0m to 29.1m. But unemployment’s up too: from 2.46m to 2.67m. So how… Continue reading
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The bias towards migrant workers
Why are you never served by a Londoner in a London branch of Pret A Manger? I asked this in the Telegraph recently, and yesterday’s Evening Standard had a great… Continue reading
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Cutting immigration won’t help youth unemployment
Reading the papers today, you could be forgiven for thinking that MigrationWatch’s new report was a smoking gun against immigration. Here we have a study that links immigration to unemployment,… Continue reading
61 CommentsEd looks more dead than deadly
If Roman Abramovich owned the Labour party, Ed Miliband would be toast by now. The floundering opposition leader gave the sort of inept, predictable and ill-organised performance at PMQs that… Continue reading
31 Comments200,000 extra working pensioners
Despite – or perhaps because of – the recession, pensioner employment has increased dramtically over the past few years. In his Telegraph column today, Fraser remarks on this important but… Continue reading
14 CommentsUnemployment rate highest in 15 years
Today’s unemployment figures do not make for cheery reading. Youth unemployment is up to over a million and unemployment overall has reached 2.62 million, meaning that the unemployment rate is… Continue reading
52 CommentsIf Clegg wants to reduce youth unemployment, then he’s going to have to look at regulation
Nick Clegg’s interview in The Times today presages a major Lib Dem effort to try and promote policies to reduce youth unemployment. With figures out on Wednesday expected to show… Continue reading
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