Jackie Long
What if people can’t – or won’t – pay council tax?
It’s hard not to avoid a subtext in the government’s new council tax support scheme, that it’s part of a move to encourage – or push – people back into work.
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Employment up for the fifth consecutive quarter
As unemployment falls by 14,000 between October and December to 2.5 million in the latest official figures, employment experts claim lower redundancy levels are down to ‘structural change’.
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Women: stop fidgeting if you want to get hired
Job applicants have always been told to avoid fidgeting during interviews. And now scientists say they have proof that it affects performance – but only for women, and not men.
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Men worst hit as average earnings slide to 2003 levels
As average earnings in the UK drop back to levels not seen for a decade, official statistics show that men have suffered the biggest decline with a 4 per cent slide in wages since 2003.
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Poundland worker wins ‘forced labour’ appeal
The government is taking emergency action after the Court of Appeal ruled in favour of a graduate that unpaid work schemes are legally flawed.
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Councils urge more local approach to youth unemployment
Excessive bureaucracy and central government control are hampering attempts at the local level to get more than a million young people into work, councils are claiming.
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Britain 2013: more jobs but lower wages and productivity
Despite the weak economy, employment is holding up – but earnings and productivity are falling, according to a leading think tank.
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Jackie Long
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Are ‘self-employed’ workers masking unemployment figures?
New figures released today show a record number of people in employment, but fears have been raised that rising self-employment figures are masking the true state of the job market.
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FactCheck: has David Cameron won the battle of the sexes?
David Cameron says that there are more women working than at any other time in history. Maybe, but are we really in a position to celebrate, FactCheck asks?
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Jackie Long
Give us a job: no skivers here, say families desperate for work
Skivers versus strivers? It’s not as simple as that – go to Newcastle and you find many people desperately searching for work and anxious not to be stigmatised as scroungers.
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Labour jobs pledge for unemployed
Pension tax relief for top earners could be cut to fund guaranteed jobs for the long-term unemployed, if Labour is re-elected.
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Balls attacks benefit claimants who are ‘playing the system’
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls defends Labour’s proposals to get unemployed people into minimum wage jobs, telling Channel 4 News that “there is no option of staying on benefits year after year”.
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Do government work schemes ever work?
As Labour announces plans to guarantee jobs for the long-term unemployed, Channel 4 News assesses whether government schemes – from the new deal to the work programme – actually work.
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Security holes remain in government jobseekers site
The government is pressing ahead with plans to force jobseekers to sign up to its new Universal Jobmatch website that has been exposed as a ‘scammer’s paradise’ by a Channel 4 News investigation.
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Biggest fall in jobless for more than 10 years
The government has had some early Christmas cheer as the latest jobless figures show the biggest quarterly fall since 2001. Business Correspondent Sarah Smith reports.
