Latest news with #BritishWorkers
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
UK employees work from home more than most global rivals, study finds
UK workers continue to work from home more than nearly any of their global counterparts more than five years after the pandemic first disrupted traditional office life, a study has found. UK employees now average 1.8 days a week of remote working, above the international average of 1.3 days, according to the Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), a worldwide poll of more than 16,000 full-time, university-educated workers across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa that began in July 2021. Hybrid working patterns – in which the week is split between the office and another remote location such as home – have become established as the dominant model in advanced economies for staff who are able to carry out their roles remotely. This is particularly true in English-speaking countries including the UK, US, Canada and Australia, according to the most recent G-SWA, which was conducted between November 2024 and February 2025. Conversely, such arrangements are rare in east Asia, where office-centric culture prevails, and most full-time workers in Japan and South Korea still commute daily to the office. The popularity of home working in the UK has previously been attributed to the cost and length of commuting, particularly in London and south-east England. 'This isn't just a post-pandemic hangover – British workers have clearly decided they're not going back to the old ways. Remote work has moved from being an emergency response to becoming a defining feature of the UK labour market,' said Dr Cevat Giray Aksoy, a G-SWA co-founder and associate professor at King's College London. 'This shift is forcing businesses, policymakers, and city planners to reimagine everything from office space to transport to regional growth,' added Aksoy, who is also an associate research director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Despite the introduction of strict return-to-office mandates at a handful of large companies, including the retail company Amazon and the asset management firm BlackRock, home working levels have stabilised in the UK since 2023, in what the researchers called a 'labour market equilibrium'. Men and women work from home at similar rates in every leading region of the world, the study found, although the desire for home working is strongest among women with children. Parents surveyed said they were more likely to adopt hybrid work, while those without children prefer either fully office-based or fully remote working models. Younger respondents showed a stronger preference for working from the office, as a way to get noticed by senior colleagues, or to learn informally from their peers. 'Hybrid work is no longer the exception, it's the expectation,' Aksoy said, adding that the research had not found any strong evidence that remote work came at the cost of productivity for organisations. This could not, however, be said for fully remote roles. 'Its impact on productivity varies dramatically depending on the type of job and how it's managed,' Aksoy said. 'In many cases, fully remote roles are concentrated in call centres or data entry, jobs that are already under pressure from automation and AI.' Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion The findings came as a separate poll from King's College found less than half (42%) of workers would comply with an employer's requirement for them to return to the office full-time, compared with 54% in early 2022. Women and parents were most likely to resist strict return mandates, researchers at the Global Institute for Women's Leadership at King's and its business school found. By late 2024, 55% of women said they would seek a new job if required to return to the office full-time. Researchers have previously suggested that some companies have issued strict return-to-office mandates as a way to shed excess staff hired under fully remote arrangements during the pandemic.
Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
DAN HODGES: The biggest problem is that we have a PM who doesn't want to stop the boats...
The words were suitably muscular: 'The Tories lost control of our borders and let net migration soar to record levels, undercutting hardworking Brits,' the Prime Minister tweeted yesterday morning. 'I won't stand for it,' he continued. 'I promised to restore control and cut migration, and I'm delivering with tough new measures. British workers – I've got your back.' But they were just that. Words. Everyone knows the Tories betrayed the British people over their pledge to slash legal migration and 'stop the boats '. It's why they were so unceremoniously booted out of office less than 12 months ago. Yet they know something else, too. Keir Starmer 's own pledge to 'deliver' on migration is equally empty. There is nothing in Labour 's proposed White Paper that is remotely 'tough' or has the slightest chance of turning the tide of humanity crossing our borders legally and illegally. Some tinkering over the time-limit for non-graduate work visas. A small reduction in the number of students staying in the UK after they have finished their courses. More lip-service to the idea of migrants having a better understanding of English. A bit of tweaking of Article B of the Human Rights Act. After some initial success in targeting the small boats and increasing the number of deportations, normal service under Labour has been resumed. Actually, exceeded. So far this year, more than 11,000 people have crossed the Channel to Britain's shores, a 40 per cent increase from the same time last year. Yet again, the voters are being treated to the spectacle of a Prime Minister promising to 'take back control' of the borders. And yet again, those words are destined to die on his lips. Meanwhile, more and more desperate people will die beneath the cold waters of the Channel. And the social fabric of the nation will continue to be rent asunder as another establishment politician's promise turns to dust. If Starmer genuinely ' had the back' of Britain's workers, he would be taking serious, radical action. An offshoring scheme for processing. Withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights that even ministers privately concede has hamstrung their efforts to get on top of the migration crisis. An economic strategy that doesn't rely on the failed model of globalisation that has seen hundreds of thousands of those workers thrown to the wolves. Instead, the people of Britain must brace themselves for another stab in the back. Within government, there has been an intense debate about how to respond to growing public fury over immigration and the accompanying populist backlash that has seen Nigel Farage surge into a double-digit lead in the polls. Ministers, including Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, have been pushing for bolder action. But Keir Starmer has rejected their entreaties. Partly this is because of complacency. No 10 is expecting a significant fall in the legal migration figures once the measures implemented by outgoing Tory Home Secretary James Cleverly feed through into the system. 'Downing Street thinks that fall will be enough to diffuse the issue,' one minister told me. 'They don't think they need to go that much further.' Then, there are the interventions from Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who believes every issue in government should be subordinated to her increasingly desperate attempts to stimulate growth. 'Rachel is terrified of the impact tougher measures will have on the economy,' a colleague reported. Yet there is another reason why Keir Starmer is incapable of getting to grips with immigration – and it is a significant one. He just doesn't want to. The Prime Minister might appear deaf and blind to the mounting anger of the British people, but he is not completely dumb. He knows full well the extent to which his failure to exert real control is fuelling the Reform insurgency. But he simply cannot bring himself to issue the harsh instructions needed to bring order to the migration chaos. There is no deep mystery to who Keir Starmer is or what he believes. Despite the efforts of his aides to construct another – more electorally viable – persona, he really is just a middle-class, liberal, human-rights lawyer from North London. Stopping the boats requires action that to him is anathema. Smashing the gangs, even if it were operationally viable, is self-evidently not going to be enough. What's needed is someone with the political vision, will and empathy to instinctively grasp the concern of working people over the ongoing migrant influx. Someone who is prepared to introduce immigration policies that are not liberal, but are – on the contrary – overtly illiberal. Someone prepared to confront with passion and energy the human-rights industry that is itself profiting from the trafficking in human misery. Keir Starmer is not that man. And everyone knows it. By pretending the Government's new White Paper is the answer to the immigration crisis, the Prime Minister is taking the British people for fools. And in the process, he is trying to fool himself.
Sky News
11-05-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Government to announce new English language and British citizenship requirements for migrants
Migrants will have to live in the UK for a decade before they can apply for citizenship under plans to reduce reliance on foreign workers. The change from five to 10 years will come with exceptions for people who make a "high contribution" to the economy or society, who will able to be fast-tracked for permanent settlement rights. It comes on top of new English language requirements across every visa route, which will extend to adult dependents for the first time. The measures will be announced by Sir Keir Starmer on Monday ahead of the Immigration White Paper, which will set out further reforms to bring net migration down. At a press conference later, the prime minister will say: "This is a clean break from the past and will ensure settlement in this country is a privilege that must be earned, not a right. "And when people come to our country, they should also commit to integration and to learning our language. "Lower net migration, higher skills and backing British workers - that is what this White Paper will deliver." Net migration - the difference between the number of people immigrating and emigrating to a country - soared when the UK left the EU in January 2020. It reached 903,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 728,000 in mid-2024. But that is still well above its pre-Brexit high of 329,000 in the year up to June 2015. The government is under pressure to tackle legal migration, as well as illegal immigration, amid Reform UK's surge in the polls. 9:47 However, experts have questioned whether some of the changes announced by Sir Keir today will have much of an impact, at least in the short term. Currently, migrants have to live in the UK for five years to get indefinite leave to remain, or "settled status" if they are from the EU. They can then use this to apply for British citizenship, usually 12 months after settlement. There were 162,000 grants of settlement in 2024, up 35% from 2023, and 270,000 grants of citizenship in 2024, up nearly a third on the previous year. 'Contributions-based' citizenship model The new "contributions-based model" means people must spend a decade in the UK before applying to stay, unless they can show a "real and lasting contribution to the economy and society". The Home Office said this will include "high-skilled" and 'high-contributing' individuals like nurses, doctors, engineers and AI leaders. The details are still being fleshed out and will be put to consultation later this year rather than in the white paper, Sky News understands. However, the thinking is that those who pay higher taxes or who work in a priority sector will be eligible to be fast-tracked. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is also keen for discounts to apply to those who make an "outstanding contribution" to society, such as community leaders, it is understood. English language requirements The government also plans to raise English language requirements across every immigration route, so foreign workers speak a higher standard of English. For the first time, this will also extend to all adult dependents by requiring them to demonstrate a basic understanding of English, which the government says will help people integrate and find employment. Dr Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, told Sky News that extending the amount of time people need to be in the UK to get permanent settlement rights is unlikely to significantly affect migration levels, as there is "no evidence" this affects their decision about whether to migrate. Any impact would be seen in five to ten years, "when people get to that point of the visa journey", she said, adding that the main effect of this policy would be to "bring in more visa-fee revenue to the Home Office" and "to make it harder for migrants to settle in". She said that language requirements "are more likely to have an impact on the number of visas granted", as more than half of skilled worker visas over the past couple of years have gone to dependents. "However, there's no data on how many of them would have passed a language test so it is hard to say how big," Dr Sumption added. The home office has not put a figure on what sort of reduction these policies could achieve, with Ms Cooper to give more details in parliament on Monday afternoon. 16:59 On Sunday, she told Sky News's Trevor Phillips that plans to close the care worker visa route and change the skilled visa threshold to require a graduate qualification would cut the number of overseas workers by about 50,000 this year. However, she refused to put a target on the overall levels of net migration the government is aiming for, saying that approach "failed" under the Conservatives. The Tories have admitted making mistakes in office, but are still calling for a binding immigration cap and want to repeal the Human Rights Act for immigration issues. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said Labour has "overseen the worst ever start to a year for illegal immigrants crossing the channel" adding: "The idea that Starmer is tough on immigration is a joke."
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Richard Tice: India deal is a betrayal of British workers
'This is an open door for further mass, uncontrolled immigration of low skilled workers' On the latest Planet Normal podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player below, columnists Liam Halligan and Allison Pearson speak to Richard Tice about Reform's recent election victories, and Sir Keir Starmer's 'two-tier' tax deal for Indian migrants. When asked to give his views on the fact that the deal struck between the UK and India, hailed by No 10 as the most economically significant since Brexit, exempts Indian migrants from paying National Insurance, the Deputy Leader of Reform said it was 'disgraceful'. 'What will happen is that unscrupulous agencies will set up, who claim to have an office in Delhi, they claim to have an office in some market town or rural city like Peterborough, and they'll basically be moving people through these agencies on secondment to employers in the UK, that will be delighted not to have to pay the 15% national insurance charge.' 'So British workers will be massively disadvantaged at a time when we're trying to get more people off benefits and back into work. It's a complete betrayal of British workers and it will suppress wages.' Planet Normal, a weekly Telegraph podcast featuring news and views from beyond the bubble. Listen on the audio player above or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast app. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
08-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Richard Tice: India deal is a betrayal of British workers
'This is an open door for further mass, uncontrolled immigration of low skilled workers' On the latest Planet Normal podcast, which you can listen to using the audio player below, columnists Liam Halligan and Allison Pearson speak to Richard Tice about Reform's recent election victories, and Sir Keir Starmer's 'two-tier' tax deal for Indian migrants. When asked to give his views on the fact that the deal struck between the UK and India, hailed by No 10 as the most economically significant since Brexit, exempts Indian migrants from paying National Insurance, the Deputy Leader of Reform said it was 'disgraceful'. 'What will happen is that unscrupulous agencies will set up, who claim to have an office in Delhi, they claim to have an office in some market town or rural city like Peterborough, and they'll basically be moving people through these agencies on secondment to employers in the UK, that will be delighted not to have to pay the 15% national insurance charge.' 'So British workers will be massively disadvantaged at a time when we're trying to get more people off benefits and back into work. It's a complete betrayal of British workers and it will suppress wages.'
