Much is being made at the moment of the rise in economic inactivity, and of the fact that total employment … Continue reading “Where have all the self-employed gone?”

It is extraordinary, after nearly a year and a half when thousands of businesses have been forced to close and … Continue reading “The UK’s labour market has performed remarkably well during Covid. Let’s not risk that”

The Supreme Court’s judgment on the Uber case last week has been welcomed rather too easily by commentators such as … Continue reading “The court ruling on Uber is bad news for both drivers and customers”

Today’s headline employment figures, as always, are backward-looking and tell us what was happening in the period August-October, before the … Continue reading “Labour market trends: look beyond the headline figures”

A little over 100 years ago, the American engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor outlined in his book Principles of Scientific Management … Continue reading “The new Taylorism misunderstands the changing nature of work”

The Taylor Review – introduced in the first chapter by ‘Matthew’, as our demotic times seem to require – is … Continue reading “Matthew Taylor’s Seven Pillars of Employment Wisdom”

Matthew Taylor was doing the rounds at the weekend, talking about the Review of Modern Employment Practices which he is … Continue reading “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Self-employment ain’t broke”

“Britain is damning itself to be a low wage, low productivity economy”. How many headlines like that have we read … Continue reading “The chancellor’s national insurance hike is based on a faulty reading of aggregate statistics”

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills launched an enquiry into self-employment last July under entrepreneur Julie Deane: it is … Continue reading “Self-employment: entrepreneurship or casualised labour?”