You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2011.
Every profession has a stock response to any question it can’t answer. A phrase that sounds thoughtful, and is vague enough to be true, but doesn’t commit the sayer to anything. For a doctor, it might be ‘it’s probably a viral infection’; or for an evasive priest, ‘that would be an ecumenical matter’. For the employment lawyer, the phrase ‘it all depends on the contract’ passes muster in most situations. But that might have to change, as two Supreme Court decisions in the last year suggest that the employment contract is becoming less and less important. More
There has been a huge rise in self-employment in the three months to October 2011, which is not explained in the latest labour market statistics release from the ONS. The total number of people in employment fell by 63,000 in the three months to October but this fall disguised some major labour market changes in the background. More
Inflation eased back again in November, but there were upward pressures that left the rate of inflation close to 5%. The Retail Prices Index (RPI) rose by 5.2 per cent in the year to November, down from 5.6 per cent in September and 5.4 per cent in October. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose by 4.8 per cent in November, down from 5.2 per cent in September and 5.0 per cent in October. More
An intriguing point made by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement last week was that ‘public sector pay has risen at twice the rate of private sector pay over the last four years’. He made the point at the time of announcing that public sector pay awards would be restricted to 1 per cent in each of the next two years, in part because ‘many are helped by pay progression – the annual increases in salary grades that many people are entitled to, even when pay is frozen’. More
