Truss and Kwarteng’s tax cutting mini budget has caused disarray on the currency markets, with Sterling tumbling to its lowest ever, meaning rising import prices are likely to cause further inflation. The Bank of England has gone ahead with interest rate rises, warning of more to come – even if it has stopped short from … Continue reading The Pound tumbles, but how would Labour pay for it?
Category: Economy
Small state Tories?
Once again, a new Tory Prime Minister and Chancellor are banging on about the need for a smaller state. The modern-day reality is that this is pure fantasy. If public spending as a proportion of GDP is used as a bench mark, then as the charts below show, the UK has continued to fall well … Continue reading Small state Tories?
Why don’t young people join trade unions?
Surveys continue to highlight a wide range of progressive views held by young people (among both Generation Z and Millennials). Polling returns also show high levels of support for Labour (and particularly the Green Party) even if this isn’t reflected in party membership. Yet barely 1 in 10 workers under 24 belong to a trade … Continue reading Why don’t young people join trade unions?
Tory leadership contest. Tax cuts, debt and ‘future generations’
Sunak and Truss continue to squabble over economic policy, Sunak repeatedly claiming his opponent's promise of immediate tax cuts is akin to putting increases in national debt on 'credit card' for future generations to pay. Despite being told by his ex-boss to spend billions on Covid support and the furlough, Sunak is on the ‘balance … Continue reading Tory leadership contest. Tax cuts, debt and ‘future generations’
Young people and ‘click-work’
The number of people relying on ‘platform work’ continues to grow and has been intensified by the pandemic. According to the TUC, people in England and Wales who said that they performed work they had found via an online platform at least once a week grew from 5.8 per cent of the working population in … Continue reading Young people and ‘click-work’
Stagflation – young people even more likely to be affected.
It’s now widely predicted that the economy will enter a prolonged period of ‘stagflation’- where rising prices and slow, or even negative economic growth exist simultaneously. But it’s rising prices ( the 'cost of living crisis') that currently receive most of the attention. Studies show that a consequence of the current inflation is the widening … Continue reading Stagflation – young people even more likely to be affected.
No mention of young people in the Spring Statement
The group most hit by the financial crisis and then, a decade later by Covid, young people are the most certain to be hit by increases in the cost of living. More than any other section of the population, their wages have failed to keep pace with inflation (under 21s already experienced a 20% fall … Continue reading No mention of young people in the Spring Statement
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?’
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?’
The furloughed economy
This month’s labour market date from ONS shows that if official unemployment has remained at around 5% since the last quarter, the number of people on payroll has plunged by 693,000 since the start of the pandemic, with younger workers under the age of 25 accounting for 60% of the jobs lost since February 2020. … Continue reading The furloughed economy
Education, Economy and Society 