Fred Pearce blogs in The Guardian that anyone supporting R&D for carbon capture and storage are part of a growing “faith brigade”, deluded into believing CCS is an imminent fix – including President Obama! Sorry, Fred, but among those going to Capitol Hill next week to air their views on coal-fired power stations will be [...]

Filed under: Energy, Environment | Comments Off

The green economy will be one of the biggest global growth sectors in the 21st century. The UK economy needs to play a major part if it is to emerge from the current economic crisis. However, the UK’s environmental sector trails countries like Germany and Denmark. This study draws on international comparisons and interviews with [...]

Filed under: Environment, Recession | Comments Off

The IPPR report on migration and labour markets (trailed in the FT and the Guardian today) shows that the effect of migration on wages, if it exists at all, has been very small (0.3% for every 1% increase in the proportion of migrants in the labour market – ie from 9% to 10% of the labour force). [...]

Filed under: Migration, Vulnerable workers | 2 Comments »

I want to set out some thoughts about how we got here, where we are, and how we get out of the mess we’re in. First, the causes of the crisis. Many profound things have been said about the details of the global credit crunch, toxic debts and so on. In simple terms, the crisis [...]

Filed under: Environment, Globalisation, Recession | 5 Comments »

You’ve just got to read Flexibility gives way to rigidity’s virtues by Paul de Grauwe in Monday’s Financial Times. The professor of economics at the University of Leuven spells out why countries with tougher workers’ rights will fare better in the recession than those without, especially if combined with generous safety nets for the unemployed [...]

Filed under: Employers, Employment law, Recession | Comments Off

Over the weekend, the Home Secretary announced further restrictions on migrant labour. In reality they were not as tough as they were spun. Some of them were just entirely sensible measures such as requiring that jobs be advertised locally first (which already applies in most cases anyway), and using indications of skill shortages to trigger [...]

Filed under: Globalisation, Migration | 1 Comment »

The scope of forced labour in the UK: improving the evidence base | Joseph Rowntree Foundation JRF launch a new research programme on forced labour in the UK (tags: forcedlabour)

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Many people have ‘got it’ by now, but our series still has some life in it, as today’s FT shows. Jamie Whyte says the PM is wrong to ban bankers’ big bonuses, because it wasn’t the bonus system that caused the crisis, it was the fact that the whole world banking system failed to price properly the [...]

Filed under: Financial crisis, They Just Don't Get It | Comments Off

I thought that I’d provide a bit of an update on what new figures and analysis show us about how women are faring during the recession. Since our first report we have had two new sets of unemployment figures. It remains true that unemployment rates are increasing for both women and men. From January – March [...]

Filed under: Employers, Labour market, Recession | 1 Comment »

Already the downturn has led to employers calling for employment rights to be slashed – most recently with the Institute of Directors claiming that fair treatment at work is costing the UK £1billion a year, with new rights to flexible working adding £61 million to their total. But of course this is ridiculous. The business [...]

Filed under: Employment law, Recession | 1 Comment »

The Fairtrade Foundation | Fairtrade – Fairtrade Fortnight 2009 Next week is the start of Fairtrade Fortnight (tags: Fairtrade) Manufacturing and the Knowledge Economy A welcome report from the Work Foundation showing the importance of manufacturing to today's economy and to our post-recession future (tags: recession manufacturing) Ending child poverty in a changing economy | [...]

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New JRF research has found that jobs fail to solve child poverty. Helen Barnard, policy and research manager at the foundation, concludes that: The sharp rise in the number of working families in poverty is a reminder that low-paid and casual labour does not usually help in pulling families out of deprivation This in a [...]

Filed under: Employers, Inequality, Quality of work, Recession, Vulnerable workers | Comments Off