Richard Exell

New figures for industrial production across Europe raise an important question: if the UK’s economic woes are caused by problems in the Eurozone, why isn’t this afflicting other countries that are in the EU but not in the Euro?

Over the past couple of weeks, Duncan and yours truly have highlighted evidence that should make government spokespeople think twice about their current defence against charges of economic incompetence (“It didn’t happen, I wasn’t there, it was two other blokes, I couldn’t help it and I’m very sorry”).

The latest prosecution evidence is the Eurostat data for industrial new orders (the value of future deliveries of products). The headline is the 6.4% fall for the Eurozone between August and September.

This is a large drop.

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Chris Ball

The papers today are full of reports that the government is going to back some of Adrian Beecroft’s proposals to curb workers’ rights. The Independent reports that Vince Cable is unveiling a number of measures, including increasing the qualifying period for workers to be able to claim unfair dismissal from one to two years.

Seemingly, the Business Secretary is also set to confirm that the government will introduce ‘protected conversations’ between an employer and a worker to discuss issues such as poor performance without this being used later in any tribunal claim.

The Indy also carries a sceptical editorial arguing that there is “little evidence that [such measures] would result in any meaningful economic improvement” and warning that they would be “unacceptably open to abuse”.

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Owen Tudor

Last Friday, British Prime Minister David Cameron had lunch with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It was a busy lunch, and the absence of detailed minutes have allowed many people to speculate about what was discussed or agreed – including some of the people who were in the room, it seems! Was it a row over the future of Europe, and the possible exclusion of the UK? Or a spat over the Robin Hood Tax, and UK attempts to demand a place at the European table while refusing to pay the price? A desperate attempt by David Cameron, just months after agreeing to observe the eurozone from afar, to claw his way back into the decision-making?

One narrative that has worried many is the suggestion that dribbled out over the weekend that Cameron offered to back Merkel’s proposed amendments to the Lisbon Treaty if she allowed him to restrict the effect of the Working Time Directive and more European employment rights, thus allowing Cameron to buy off his eurosceptic rightwing backbenchers. Here’s why I think that’s unlikely to be the full story.

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• Cheques With Balances: why tackling high pay is the national interest
  The High Pay Commission’s final report says average wages in the UK today are a “modest” £25,900, which is three times their 1980 level of £6,474. During the same period, the pay of some top executives rose by more than 4,000%. Wealth is ‘flowing’ towards the top 0.1% – on current trends, they will take 14% of GDP by 2035. The report argues that this inequality is bad for trust within firms, harms productivity and has harmful social consequences.

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David Hall

Three years after the financial sector triggered a global recession, not much has changed in world of bank regulation. The financial liberalisation introduced since the 1980s remains defiantly in place, discussion of regulation is still dominated by a ‘hands-off’ approach, and the international institutions are still promoting financial liberalisation and market-friendly regulation as the correct policies.

But new research has just been published which shows very clearly that these policies are wrong – and that they are in fact highly damaging. Remarkably, this evidence comes in a research paper published by the IMF.

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Richard Exell

This month’s Labour Market Report looks at the exceptionally grim employment and unemployment figures, all at their worst since 2009: before the end of the recession. There are one million unemployed young people and a quarter of a million who have been unemployed for over a year. The fall in employment would have been even worse if self-employment hadn’t risen by 100,000; employment and self-employment are currently heading in opposite directions, possibly a sign that many unemployed people are trying to escape by setting up their own businesses.

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• Over half would struggle within 3months if illness struck
  A new study from insurers Aviva shows that 52% of workers could survive financially for only 3months on statutory sick pay, 30% say they would survive for less than a month. This is despite the fact that 26% think SSP is “considerably” higher than it actually is – so much for it’s being ‘over-generous’!
• UK Childrens’ Commissioners’ Mid-term Report on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
  The four Children’s Commissioners from the nations of the UK mark the International Day of the Child by publishing their midterm report on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Commissioners may be independent, but they are publicly-funded, and their language about child poverty and the Welfare Reform Bill is remarkable.

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Richard Exell

This month’s labour market vlog looks at two stories that emerged from the latest employment figures. The employment and unemployment figures look as if we’re headed back to the depths of the recession and the there are more than one million unemployed young people for the first time since the 1980s. And the number of people on government employment programmes has been falling for six months: just how much do we care about young unemployed people?

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Alice Hood

Two stories published in the last few days should convince any remaining doubters that the Government’s promises to protect the NHS are in tatters. Cuts, growing waiting lists and the massive top-down reorganisation of the NHS are all taking their toll.

Research published by the Royal College of Nursing today finds that more than 56,000 NHS posts are set to be cut.  Half of these are clinical posts and one third of them are nursing roles. Particularly worrying is the finding that the pace of cuts is increasing. There are also a number of associated trends of cutting hours and replacing experienced staff with cheaper workers at lower grades.

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Richard Exell

The cuts are no longer just announcements, appearing in press releases and union reactions. The reality of lost jobs and disappearing services was illuminated by three reports that appeared over the weekend.

• The Royal College of Nursing reports that the NHS is “heading for a crisis point”, with 56,000 jobs due to go – or already gone. This figure has resien nearly twenty thousand in seven months.
• A new report from Mind indicates that a combination of rising demand and the cuts is stretching acute and crisis mental health services, with discussions about frozen posts and bed reductions starting as early as Autumn 2010.
• An investigation by Channel 4 News found that the welfare reforms are already leading to claimants being “bouncedbetween being told at assessment that they are fit for work, to being found unfit at appeal then sent straight back in for a new assessment where – you’ve guessed it – they’re found fit for work again.” This is putting huge pressure on GPs, advice agencies and the appeals system.

And where is this leading us?

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