UK suffered biggest unemployment surge in G7 April 16, 2026 UK unemployment rose at a faster pace than any country in the G7, the OECD has said, with a sharp rise in joblessness particularly damaging for the youngest people. Unemployment levels across the country rose sharply by 0.8 percentage points over the year to 5.2 per cent between the last three months of 2024 and [...]
Firms slash jobs at fastest pace this year and pay growth slows April 13, 2026 Businesses slashed jobs at the fastest pace in 2026 as employers also resisted giving staff big pay increases over March, research has suggested, exposing the Iran war’s damaging effects on all sides of the UK economy. Research by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and KPMG said there was a steeper rise in the number [...]
Chief executives blame sleepless nights on their own senior team April 1, 2026 An angry board, a languid share price, mutiny in the junior ranks. All things you would expect the fiduciary-responsibility-bound chief executives of major listed companies to worry about. But new research suggests bosses at the helm of the world’s largest firms have a more immediate source of sleepless nights: their own leadership team. According to [...]
Sunak urges rethink on taxing jobs as AI begins to reshape hiring March 22, 2026 Rishi Sunak has called for a rethink of how work is taxed, warning that AI is beginning to shift hiring patterns as companies weigh the cost of people against automation. Writing in The Times, Sunak said employers face immediate costs when hiring through national insurance contributions (NIC), while deploying AI carries no equivalent tax burden, [...]
Ex-Google executive puts AI hiring under scrutiny March 18, 2026 A former Google Cloud executive has put AI hiring and its consequences under renewed scrutiny in a US courtroom. The unnamed ex-Big Tech employee’s testimony revolved around how automated, agentic systems are increasingly shaping recruitment decisions, not at the final interview stage, but much earlier, where candidates are filtered, ranked and, in many cases, excluded. [...]
Why this oil shock isn’t like the last one March 17, 2026 The new surge in oil prices will be shaped more by political responses than by monetary policy, due to a crucial shift in the economic backdrop from the tight labor markets of 2022 to the current looser conditions, says Helen Thomas This week, six major central banks meet in quick succession, including the big four: [...]
Will you lose your job to AI? This tool could give you a clue March 11, 2026 A new online tool promises to show workers how exposed their job is to AI, as debate intensifies over how the technology will reshape the labour market. The platform, launched by career intelligence startup Somethingelse, allows users to test their role against an analysis of more than 5,000 jobs. It measures how much of each [...]
Most people have no idea how good AI is – and they’ll be the first to go February 12, 2026 A viral post from an AI investor warns most people have no idea how good AI is, or how quickly it will come for their jobs. Will it come for mine? Maybe. A couple of weeks ago I looked at the essay written by Anthropic’s co-founder in which he expressed his fears that humanity won’t [...]
UK businesses turn to overseas talent and AI as Reeves’ taxes bite February 9, 2026 British businesses are facing a “trade off” as rising costs for employers push firms into investing in overseas talent and leveraging AI. Whilst businesses are ditching the “wait-and-see” approach that engulfed firms amidst the tax uncertainty ahead of November’s Budget, this has not translated into a hiring upswing, the latest KPMG and REC jobs report [...]
UK labour market weakens as hiring and pay growth cools February 8, 2026 The UK labour market continued to lose momentum at the start of 2026, with falling employment, weak hiring demand and easing wage growth reinforcing signs of a sustained slowdown. BDO’s Employment Index fell for a third consecutive month in January to 93.30, its lowest level since March 2011, as businesses pulled back on recruitment amid persistent cost [...]