The effects of the recession and changing times are still effecting the job market in the North East. Tata Steel apparently plans to cut some 1,500 jobs at its Scunthorpe plant and Teesside sites after continued losses for the last two years. Tata’s England based business produces bars, rods and rails for the construction sector.
The growth of homeworking stalled during the recent recession, the TUC says in a new analysis of official figures to mark National Work From Home Day today (Friday), which is organised by Work Wise UK.
The research shows that between 2005 and 2010, an extra 227,000 people said they mainly worked from home, bringing the total number of homeworkers to 3.7 million by 2010.
But last year saw a small fall in the proportion of people working from home, from 12.9 to 12.8 per cent of the workforce, with the total number of homeworkers increasing by just 10,000.
High unemployment and job insecurity during the recession is likely to have made staff more reluctant to ask to work from home.
However working from home can save on office costs, ease transport congestion and help staff manage their workload more effectively, making it a more productive and cost-effective way to work, says the TUC.
While not every job is suitable for homeworking all of the time, regular or occasional working from home is still possible in a wide range of jobs, with unions and employers agreeing flexible working arrangements in workplaces across the UK.
Always be careful when apply for work from home positions and under no circumstances should you be paying money upfront.
The Government has launched a report outlining radical plans to break the cycle of reoffending, by developing a stronger link between learning in prisons and the vocational and employability skills that employers demand.
The report sets out the Government’s commitment to:
- Increase the range and relevance of learning, focussing on the skills employers need.
- Support more work opportunities in prison.
- Improve links with employers, ensuring where possible a relationship with employers has been established before release.
- Boost activity to prepare prisoners for apprenticeship opportunities on release.
- Focus learning delivery towards the end of prisoners’ sentences – linking it directly to needs in the labour market on release.
- Reshape careers advice provided in custody.
- Trial outcome incentive payments – giving colleges and training providers a greater stake in delivering learning successfully.
- Restructure the delivery of offender learning around the clusters of prisons within which prisoners normally move. This will bring more coherence to the system.
Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning Minister John Hayes said:
“Our goal is to make sure offenders understand there are viable alternatives to criminality. Rehabilitation through education works best when there is a strong link to meaningful work.
“I want to ensure that, for as many ex-offenders as possible, release is not followed by re-arrest, but by employment and re-integration into law-abiding society.
”We have ensured these reforms offer good value for the tax payer: money will go where it is most needed and will do most good.”
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Some areas of Scotland have become worse than inner London boroughs in becoming the worst employment blackspots in the UK. West Dunbartonshire is apparently the worst place to find a job. More than 40 people are thought to be chasing every vacancy. The national average is six.
Some London boroughs including Haringey and Lewisham are regularly in the top 10 and are now joined by new areas such as the Isle of Wight, West Dunbartonshire and South Lanarkshire.
With university so expensive there has been a recent explosion in the number of students applying for apprenticeships with major organisations. Centrica received 65,000 applications for 600 places on offer. With such a high chance of not getting that elusive place on the scheme students should turn to temping to get on the career ladder. People seem to be ashamed of temping but in today’s volatile market - a temp job could be your best possible start!
