1,000 jobs created in wind power and Heathrow's busiest-ever April as numbers boom
Opinion: Too many jobseekers, not enough jobs - what next for UK hiring?
The UK labour market is kind of sending mixed signals.
Recruiters say the number of people chasing advertised jobs has surged, not because opportunities are booming, but because businesses are laying off staff and freezing recruitment.
According to research from 400 agencies, April saw a marked weakening in demand for new hires. It's a sobering reality for jobseekers, made worse by the uncertainty employers face when it comes to payroll taxes and regulation, not to mention global events.
As Neil Carberry, of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation puts it, the latest figures are "on the good end of our expectations" - but you might argue that says more about how low expectations have sunk.
There's still hope for a rebound later in the year, but it hinges on more than just market forces. If the Government is serious about getting Britain working again, now's the time to act, and it's going to require something new, innovative and dramatic. Because while legislation like the Employment Rights Bill might be welcome from a moral standpoint, it probably isn't going to help one bit on the recruitment front.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Labour's 1970s employment rights bill could send Britain over the edge
Rachel Reeves made vast spending pledges last week in a bid to placate fellow ministers, Labour MPs and party activists and save her political skin. She made no effort whatsoever to explain how she will pay. Yes, this was the Chancellor's spending review. We will get more detail on taxation and borrowing, the other side of the Government's ledger, during her next annual Budget, expected in late October or early November. Given how borrowing has ramped up over recent months, though – with debt interest payments surging as gilt yields have soared – it's astonishing that Reeves said absolutely nothing to reassure financial markets during her House of Commons speech. Back in March 2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasted borrowing for the financial year from April 2024 to April 2025 of £87bn. After the first Labour budget in 14 years last October – during which Reeves increased borrowing and taxation by a combined £70bn, green-lighting hefty public sector pay deals, net zero projects and much else on her party's ideological wish-list – the year's borrowing forecast ballooned to £127.5bn. Spool forward to the March Spring Statement and estimated 2024-25 borrowing was up another £10bn, to £137.3bn. And by the time the financial year ended a month later, the total had surged again to £148.3bn, a rise in our national debt in a single year more than £60bn up on the forecast Labour inherited on entering government last July. Reeves claims endlessly to have 'discovered a £22bn black hole in the public finances left by the Tories' on taking office. This is fictitious nonsense, used by ministers to justify tax rises not mentioned in Labour's election manifesto. But even if you accept this rhetorical tosh, which I don't, the £60bn-plus rise in borrowing in 2024-25 alone is almost three times bigger. The more Reeves drones on about 'the black hole we inherited', as she did yet again at the top of her speech last Wednesday, the more she undermines her fast-diminishing credibility in the eyes of financial markets. That's yet another thing she simply can't afford. Before last October's budget, the 30-year gilt yield – the rate of interest charged by investors to lend the UK government long-term money – was about 4.35pc. Yields in recent weeks have moved in a range of 5.25-5.5pc, having been above the 4.85pc peak during the height of the 'Liz Truss mini-Budget crisis' for the whole of this year. Yes, sovereign bonds yields have risen in other highly-indebted Western nations since last autumn. But 30-year yields in France, Germany and Italy are all considerably lower and have gone up far less (by less than half a percentage point in each case). Plus, about a quarter of the UK's sovereign debt is index-linked, far more than other G7 economies, which makes us uniquely vulnerable, with debt-service costs spiralling rapidly upward as inflationary pressures rise. After what shadow chancellor Mel Stride rightly called a 'spend now, tax later' spending review, we're now in for 'a cruel summer of speculation'. Cash-strapped companies and households will now angst about yet more Labour tax rises in this autumn's Budget. The fine print of last week's Treasury documents shows Reeves's plans are predicated on council tax in England rising by 5pc every year during the rest of this Parliament. The only way the UK can avoid a really serious fiscal crisis is to get economic growth going on – with more consumption and investment driving tax receipts up and a larger economy then more able to shoulder our huge national debt stock. Yet the day after Reeves's statement came news the economy shrank 0.3pc during April – the first monthly drop in headline GDP for six months and the worst single month since October 2023. Labour's 25pc rise in employer national insurance contributions (NIC), implemented from April, has seriously hammered hiring. Provisional data shows payroll employment fell by a vast 109,000 in May alone, with employment having fallen every single month since this ill-judged NIC rise was announced last October. And now, just as we really need to get people back to work, to kick-start growth, Labour's employment rights bill is set to clear Parliament. Deeply counterproductive, this legislation takes the UK back to the 1970s by significantly increasing trade union influence, a sure-fire route to stagnation. Championed by 'Red Queen' Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, this bill removes qualifying periods for sick pay, maternity pay and unfair dismissal, granting all of these from day one of employment. No wonder countless employer surveys point to fears of lawsuits and greater reluctance to take on more staff. The legislation repeals plenty of the trade union controls from the early-and mid-1980s onwards that rescued Britain from the dystopian and destructive industrial relations of my childhood. The 50pc threshold for strike ballots is set to go, along with vital minimum service levels during industrial action, handing ever more bargaining power to Labour's trade union paymasters. Creating new finger-pointing quangos to chide employers, and requirements for companies to implement endless 'equality action plans', there are also insidious 'opt out' clauses designed to maximise worker contributions to unions and therefore the Labour party, with scant disclosure. It is yet another example of how the Government is determined to replace enterprise, prosperity and opportunity with regulation, entitlement and state overreach. I'm amazed this ghastly legislation has attracted so little media attention. It must be vigorously opposed and called out by the leadership of both the Tories and Reform, the only two parties likely to acknowledge the dangers. Because unless the economy gets going, and the UK escapes this low-growth, high-borrowing, high-tax doom loop, we're heading for a serious fiscal crisis.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
UK government rollout of Humphrey AI tool raises fears about reliance on big tech
The government's artificial intelligence (AI) tool known as Humphrey is based on models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, it can be revealed, raising questions about Whitehall's increasing reliance on big tech. Ministers have staked the future of civil service reform on rolling out AI across the public sector to improve efficiency, with all officials in England and Wales to receive training in the toolkit. However, it is understood the government does not have overarching commercial agreements with the big tech companies on AI and uses a pay-as-you-go model through its existing cloud contracts, allowing it to swap through tools as they improve and become competitive. Critics are concerned about the speed and scale of embedding AI from big tech into the heart of government, especially when there is huge public debate about the technology's use of copyrighted material. Ministers have been locked in a battle with critics in the House of Lords over whether AI is unfairly being trained on creative material without credit of compensation. Its data bill allowing copyrighted material to be used unless the rights holder opts out passed its final stage this week in a defeat for those fighting for further protections. The issue has caused a fierce backlash from the creative sector, with artists including Elton John, Tom Stoppard, Paul McCartney and Kate Bush throwing their weight behind a campaign to protect copyrighted material. A freedom of information request showed the government's Consult, Lex and Parlex tools designed to analyse consultations and legislative changes use base models from Open AI's GPT, while its Redbox tool, which helps civil servants with everyday tasks such as preparing briefs, uses Open AI GPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google Gemini. Ed Newton-Rex, the chief executive of Fairly Trained, who obtained the FoI and is campaigning against AI being trained on copyrighted material, said there was the potential for a conflict when the government was also thinking about how this sector should deal with copyright. He said: 'The government can't effectively regulate these companies if it is simultaneously baking them into its inner workings as rapidly as possible. These AI models are built via the unpaid exploitation of creatives' work. 'AI makes a ton of mistakes, so we should expect these mistakes to start showing up in the government's work. AI is so well known for 'hallucinating' – that is, getting things wrong – that I think the government should be keeping transparent records of Humphrey's mistakes, so that its continuing use can be periodically reevaluated.' Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour peer and civil liberties campaigner, also urged caution and to be mindful of biases and inaccuracies such as those seen in the Horizon computer system that led to the miscarriage of justice for post office operators. Whitehall sources said Humphrey tools all worked in different ways, but users could take different approaches to tackling 'hallucinations', or inaccuracy, and the government continually publishes evaluations about the accuracy of technology in trials. An AI playbook for government also sets out guidance to help officials make use of the technology quickly and offers advice on how to ensure people have control over decisions at the right stages. The costs of using AI in government are expected to grow as Humphrey is further rolled out but officials say prices of AI per-use in the industry have trended downwards, as models become more efficient. Whitehall sources said big projects such as the Scottish government's use of AI to analyse consultation responses had cost less than £50 and saved many hours of work. Using the government's AI Minute software to take notes for a one-hour meeting costs less than 50p and its early data shows that it saves officials an hour of admin each time. A spokesperson from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said: 'AI has immense potential to make public services more efficient by completing basic admin tasks, allowing experts to focus on the important work they are hired to deliver. 'Our use of this technology in no way limits our ability to regulate it, just as the NHS both procures medicines and robustly regulates them. 'Humphrey, our package of AI tools for civil servants, is built by AI experts in government – keeping costs low as we experiment with what works best.' When the Guardian asked ChatGPT what base models were used for the Humphrey AI toolkit and if Open AI was involved, it replied that the information was not available. At the time the tool was announced earlier this year, the government said its strategy for spending £23bn a year on technology contracts would be changed, boosting opportunities for smaller tech startups.
The Herald Scotland
3 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Dark day for SNP if Falkirk added to Proclaimers song's litany of loss
Irvine was where Sturgeon grew up. She witnessed its degeneration, and she came to believe that only the SNP and independence could restore the country's position as a manufacturing powerhouse. This post-industrial decline turned much of central Scotland into the equivalent of the US rust belt: an urban fallout zone, blighted by generations-deep unemployment and heroin, which seeped into the cracks created by economic upheaval. Sturgeon's own experience, which chimed with others', coincided with a gradual shift within the party, towards the left and from rural to metropolitan. It also instilled a conviction that workers must never again be abandoned to their fate. As awareness of the impact of climate change grew, it was clear Scotland was going to have to distance itself from the black, black oil: the totem in which so much political faith had been invested. But this time round, the SNP assured us, there would be 'a just transition', with jobs lost in fossil fuels matched by jobs created in renewables, and support for retraining. How hollow that pledge must feel in Falkirk today, as the town and its surrounds face up to a double whammy of closures: first the Grangemouth refinery, which stopped processing crude oil in April, and now, if no-one steps in, bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis. The company, which is threatening to move its Larbert and Falkirk factories to Scarborough, employs 400 people across the two sites, while 450 are being made redundant at Grangemouth. But many more livelihoods are linked to their supply chains, or dependent on their workers having money to spend. The impact of big closures ripples out through communities, and filters down the generations. (Image: Alexander Dennis president and managing director Paul Davies Image: ADL) SNP EVASION HOW galling, too, to watch the Scottish Government try to exculpate itself from blame. In its efforts to evade responsibility, it has exposed how little it has done to support the beleaguered labour forces. When Westminster pushed through emergency legislation to prevent Scunthorpe steelworks from closing, John Swinney called for the same quasi-nationalisation for Grangemouth. But his remarks were countered by owner Petroineos, which said: 'If governments had wanted to seriously consider different ownership models, the time to start that work was five years ago when we first alerted them to the challenges at the refinery.' This was nothing compared to the humiliation meted out by Manchester mayor Andy Burnham when he revealed his city had bought four times more Alexander Dennis buses than the Scottish Government. Burnham's flaunting of his Wee Bee electric fleet, which Alexander Dennis helped to create, was particularly embarrassing, given the poor state of our own public transport network, and the fact Burnham's drive towards creating the UK's first fully electric, zero-emission, integrated public transport system by 2030 feels like a model for what a 'just transition' should look like. NOT A REALITY SCOTLAND, and particularly Glasgow, has been fantasising about the creation of a similar network for years, but it has not yet managed to translate it into reality. Further reddening Scottish Government faces was the revelation that 208 orders from the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund – set up to accelerate the transition to zero-emission buses – had gone elsewhere, including China. This must have hit Alexander Dennis hard given one of the challenges it says it faces is 'strong competition from Chinese electric bus manufacturers whose share of the market [has] risen from 10% to 35%'. Grangemouth and Alexander Dennis have much in common. They both have foreign owners: PetroChina had a 50% stake in the oil refinery, while Alexander Dennis was bought over by Canadian company NFI Group Inc in 2019. This means decisions about their future were/are being made outside Scotland, with the UK and Scottish governments left scrabbling about trying in some way to respond. 'I think if we are going to allow these sectors to be run in this way, it ought to be with much more dialogue and agreement,' Dr Ewan Gibbs, senior lecturer in economic and social history at Glasgow University, told me. 'If we think these sectors and these workforces are so important we should be devising longer-term forms of planning.' Climate change made the demise of Grangemouth oil refinery all but inevitable. In this case, it is the failure to prepare that shocks. PROJECT WILLOW THE much-vaunted Project Willow – a £1.5 million feasibility study funded by the UK and Scottish governments – is less a plan than a menu of potential low-carbon opportunities such as hydrogen production and plastics recycling. Its belated delivery rendered one of its options – the production of sustainable aviation fuel – nigh-on impossible because the processes necessary for it to be carried out had already stopped and it would be very expensive to restart them. To create the mooted 800 jobs forecast would require £3.5 billion of investment. The £200m the UK Government has offered to support it will only be released if and when a suitable investor comes forward. None of this is of any use to those who are losing their Grangemouth oil refinery represented the past, Alexander Dennis – with its electric buses – is a symbol of the future, a vital spark in our supposed green revolution, ripe for nationalisation. It could be that, having burned its fingers (and squandered £200m) on the disastrous nationalisation of Ferguson's shipyard, and the ferries scandal that followed, the government is wary about acquiring another struggling company. But you have to ask: if it's not prepared to step in and rescue a proven enterprise like this bus manufacturer, will it ever be prepared to intervene again? It must do something, though, because there's so much at stake and the losses feed into a larger picture. According to the census, there are 100,000 fewer people working in manufacturing in Scotland now than there were at the start of the 21st century. Deindustrialisation isn't something that happened in the late 1980s/early 1990s and then stopped, but part of a depressing pan-Scotland continuum. As for Falkirk itself, we know what happens to places which experience job losses on a mass scale. Their shops close, they lose their sense of identity, crime rises, drug use rises, life expectancy drops. It's a decline that has its own momentum, difficult to stop once it has started. READ MORE: Dani Garavelli: A good death is an extension of a good life Dani Garavelli: Even for great writers, the pursuit of truth is perilous Dani Garavelli: Voters are done with politicians who talk big and act small 'SCUNNERED-NESS' SOMETHING else we know: that decline breeds a certain kind of scunnered-ness. Voters in places which have lost their main sources of income look at how little the established parties have done to help them and want to crush them. It is those communities, where poverty is rife and employment a distant memory, that are most vulnerable to populism, to parties promising to better the lives of ordinary working-class people. Once – and with much better intentions – that was the SNP. Now it is Reform. We are already seeing it capitalise on misery across the country. It is in the SNP's interests, then, to make sure solutions to Grangemouth and Alexander Dennis are found: for the communities involved, for the planet, and for its own political survival. It would be a grim irony, if, almost 40 years after The Proclaimers' album came out – and on the SNP's watch – Falkirk had to be added to the litany of loss.
