The latest ONS labour market data (published at the start of this week) shows unemployment falling to 4.2 per cent. Redundancies remained below pre-pandemic levels, with just 1.2 unemployed per vacancy. In other words the effects on joblessness of ending of the furlough appear limited. Having said this,the ONS says it is still possible that people made redundant were … Continue reading Leaving labour.
Author: Martin Allen
BTEC funding – a one year reprieve (so far)
The Skills Bill is currently completing its progress through Parliament where some of the most vocal opponents to the proposals to defund BTECs have been members of the House of Lords - in particular former Secretaries of State for Education, Ken Baker, the instigator of the National Curriculum under Mrs Thatcher, but now a campaigner for … Continue reading BTEC funding – a one year reprieve (so far)
The House of Lords and the Young Unemployed.
Their Lordships, even if, as one of the most archaic parts of the British state, many of whom are unlikely to have had any real personal contact with working class young people, have commissioned a two hundred page report on youth joblessness. lords-reportDownload With a committee membership stretching from Lord (Kenneth) Baker, as education minister … Continue reading The House of Lords and the Young Unemployed.
Jobs, jobs, jobs?
This month’s labour market statistics continue to confound many. It’s clearly a case of ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ though it’s probably still too early to properly assess the affects of the end of furlough and the number of ‘zombie jobs’ - the statistics cover the three month period before. Nevertheless unemployment is now at 4.3%, falling … Continue reading Jobs, jobs, jobs?
Review: The Automation debate
Phil Jones . Work without the Worker. Labour in the Age of Platform Capitalism (Verso 2021) This readable and informative book explores the abusive nature of crowd-working platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and its emulators. Here under the banner of 'technological progress', extreme forms of exploitation have developed and a new generation of ‘micro-workers’ has emerged. Forced … Continue reading Review: The Automation debate
‘Skills, Skills, Skills’ – Sunak’s £1.6 billion for the T’s.
To help tweak the “skills revolution” Chancellor Sunak will provide £1.6 billion for 16-19 education. Though much less than college bosses have called for, a large amount of this will be funding for 100,000 16- to 19-year-olds studying for T-levels, the new and controversial technical-based qualifications launched in three vocational areas in September 2020 at the height of the … Continue reading ‘Skills, Skills, Skills’ – Sunak’s £1.6 billion for the T’s.
‘Skills, Skills, Skills?’
Like almost all of his efforts to shore up support amongst his own supporters, Boris Johnson’s ‘Skills, Skills, Skills’ speech at the Tory Party Conference was little more than rhetoric. Even if unemployment continues to fall, there isn’t a jobs boom and there’s not the slightest chance that the UK will become the high skilled, … Continue reading ‘Skills, Skills, Skills?’
New edition of Post-16 Educator -out now
Articles on Lesson observation HE strategyStudent destinationsDefunding BTECsSteve McQueen’s films .....and more http://post16educator.org.uk
Youth joblessness falls but uncertainties continue
Yesterday's ONS labour market figures show unemployment down to 4.6%, falling from 5.5% at the height of the pandemic, with over a million vacancies. Young workers have been the hardest hit with the 16-24 unemployment rate reaching almost 15% by September 2020, but this is now also falling - down to 12.9% in the May-July … Continue reading Youth joblessness falls but uncertainties continue
Tories higher education strategy goes off the rails?
The pandemic has caused a serious crisis for Tory higher education policy. Wanting the university sector to be restricted to ‘the few’, or at the very least, highly stratified, with the right students in the right institutions, Conservative governments have tried to establish an alternative vocational route for young people by introducing new ‘technical’ qualifications … Continue reading Tories higher education strategy goes off the rails?
Education, Economy and Society 