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When Amy Williams became the first British solo gold medallist at the Winter Olympics since 1980, her sister Ruth said: “It’s fantastic. Amy has lived her dream”. How exciting for Amy. But how sad for the rest of us that living the dream is such a rare and wonderful thing to happen that it needs to be remarked upon. (more…)

I met a man yesterday who has been working in the same job for over thirty years. He was content, fully committed to his employer and they, so it seems to him. He will retire one day but he has no plans to change his job until then. It got me thinking. (more…)

I was talking yesterday to a lecturer at Central St Martins, possibly the leadings Arts College in the country. She was telling me how proud she felt working there, of the tremendous wealth of talented students that that were coming through and how she felt we were producing an astonishing new wave of creativity in British Art, Design and Fashion. And yet, she was frustrated. Because on graduation there was nowhere for this talent to go; no jobs sufficiently demanding of their skills, no challenges that could fully engage their creativity. As an economy we are not making any real use at all of the creative and hence commercial opportunities we have. (more…)

A friend of mine runs a commercial printing company. He took me into his production room yesterday. It is the size of a car mechanic’s workshop, humming with machinery, peoples bustling everywhere, piles of printing on every surface. Situated in the heart of London and with a small dedicated team of workers it is hardly the image that comes to mind when we speak of factories or manufacturing. But it is a factory and that’s what makes it important. (more…)

It is in weather like this that teleworking really comes into its own. OK, it’s Christmas and many people have already stopped work or gone on holiday, not to mention those with winter illnesses or Swine Flu. But with snow covering much of the country the number of unplanned absences will rise dramatically making this probably the least well attended working week of the year. (more…)

Is the economic climate easing, and are we likely to see a better recruitment market over the next few months? At the moment the signals are mixed, which means that job security, or for many people the chances of getting back into work, remain precarious. (more…)

Statistics are confusing. The unemployment figures out yesterday showed that the youth unemployment rate now stands at 18.4%, the highest figure since records began in 1992. But the TUIC have shown that youth unemployment was higher during the 1980s recession, before the current records began. (more…)

The New Economics Foundation claims to have found a way to measure the true worth of different jobs to society.  They claim that £1 invested in high-quality residential care for children generates a social return of between £4 and £6.10 whilst £1 invested in alternative, non-prison based sentencing for women offenders generates a social return of £14. Cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, whilst tax accountants destroy more value than anyone else- £47 destroyed for every £1 created. (more…)

The head of the Girls Schools Association is warning private girls’ schools that there is an unprecedented amount of pressure on their students to become both a perfect mother and a career woman.  She is said to encourage girls to appreciate that it is alright to work part time or not at all when raising children. (more…)

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development have reported that the number of firms planning to make people redundant has fallen and that the situation in the jobs market, although still severe, is better than it was a year ago. This doesn’t mean that we have turned a corner, but things do seem to be looking up. (more…)