After spending billions on the Job Support Scheme, Rishi Sunak has now signalled his intention to ‘balance the books’ and reign in government spending, even if the Chancellor was quick to qualify this as being a ‘medium term’ objective – thus hoping to stave off some fears about an imminent return to ‘austerity’.  All this … Continue reading Training without jobs →

* https://education-economy-society.com/2020/04/02/theres-no-place-like-home-working-practices-after-the-crisis/ As lockdown has eased. more people have been encouraged to go back to their offices, yet a study by the  Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR)  indicates that between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of employees will still be working from home on any one day in 2021. Other surveys … Continue reading Home or away? Working practices during and after the crisis * →

With government deficits and government borrowing reaching levels not experienced since the second world war, debate grows about how it will be paid for. Stephanie Kelton argues that it does not have to be. Kelton is a leading promoter of Modern Monetary Theory. Its central argument is that because countries like the UK issue their … Continue reading Review: Stephanie Kelton, The Deficit Myth →

As a  previous post has indicated, the Covid crisis has given  new impetus to working from home. https://education-economy-society.com/2020/04/02/theres-no-place-like-home-working-practices-after-the-crisis/ Subsequent findings confirm its increasing popularity. According to UGov (13/05) more than 4 in 10 of the pre-crisis workforce are exclusively working from home (38%), with another 8% now doing so some of the time. Prior to … Continue reading Zoomie jobs and Zombie jobs →

Using data from government and media outlets, it can be estimated that about 40% of the adult population are now dependent on state funding to survive. For example, over 6  million workers are furloughed, there have been 1.8 million additional claims for universal credit – on top of the pre-crisis figure of well over a … Continue reading 40% now dependent on state funding – another step to a basic income? →

If medical evidence shows young people to be least affected by coronavirus, they are most likely to suffer economically.  The Institute of Fiscal Studies reports that employees aged under 25 are about two and a half times as likely to work in a sector that is now closing down. https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14791 Some economists  are predicting that … Continue reading Lock down will hit young people the hardest. →

Management and personnel journals are well versed in the advantages of working from home.   Working from home is supposed to improve employee retention   - by eliminating  increasingly long commutes,  it allows employers to recruit applicants from more geographically remote areas, improves motivation and efficiency and of course, produces financial benefits, savings on office space and … Continue reading ‘There’s no place like home’? – working practices after the crisis. →

".............. governments need to deploy massive fiscal stimulus, including through “helicopter drops” of direct cash disbursements to households. Given the size of the economic shock, fiscal deficits in advanced economies will need to increase from 2-3% of GDP to about 10% or more. Only central governments have balance sheets large and strong enough to prevent … Continue reading ‘Helicopter drops’ and the magic money tree… →

Just think. Barely a month ago government was still sticking to its ‘fiscal rules’ about how much it could borrow and for what. Loosening the ‘austerity’ straitjacket slightly but still reminding us that there was no ‘magic money tree’,  everything needed to be costed and paid for. On the eve of Chancellor’s 'coronavirus' budget, announcing … Continue reading There is a magic money tree (or a forest) after all! →

  While all major western capitalist economies have experienced a growth in the proportion of low paid, low skilled work especially within the service sector, these trends have been particularly pronounced in the UK. Accelerated by a decade of austerity they have been the deliberate result of an economic model promoted by Boris Johnson's predecessors. … Continue reading Tories dismantling their own ‘reserve army’ →