The Edge

Richard Northedge takes on corporate finance

Archive for the ‘Employment’ category

New Minimum Wages: Price labour to reflect the market

Freezing the minimum wage for young people is the right decision. It is better to have a badly-paid job than no job at all.
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The good news is that there’s no bad news

How many swallows does it take to make a summer? Good April figures on UK unemployment and inflation do not mean the economic squalls are over but we should be grateful for small mercies.
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Of course not everyone should go to university…

It is disappointing for the 150,000 would-be students who have failed to gain a place at university, but degrees wouldn’t be worth much if if they were available to everyone who wanted one.
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Bonuses for everyone if retirement dates are scrapped

If employers cannot make staff retire at 65, will they have to make redundancy payments to force them to go? If so, few will leave voluntarily: they’ll hang on for the windfall payout.
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Should male MPs lecture the City on equality?

Hypocrisy and politicians may be natural bedfellows but just as the general election was called, a committee of 13 male MPs and one female issued a report criticising the City for not promoting women. Pots and kettles come to mind.
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America’s April fool: employing people to count the unemployed

United States citizens fill in their census forms on 1 April and it is just as well the ten-yearly statistical exercise is not used to assess employment.
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Marks & Spencer and the corporate transfer

How appropriate that the terms of Marc Bolland’s recruitment to Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) were announced on the last day of the football transfer window.  M&S is paying a £7.5m fee to attract him from rival retailer Wm Morrison (LON:MRW).
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There’s nothing wrong with inequality

A report detailing the gap between Britain’s rich and poor has been met with universal shock and promises to narrow the divide. But why? Isn’t inequality not only inevitable but desirable?
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Don’t forget the inside candidates

When companies need a new leader, why do they so often call in the City headhunters and search for external candidates instead of promoting from inside? Is it because the internal applicants’ faults are known while the unknown outsiders offer hope?
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Psychology is against Alistair Darling

Everyone agrees the government must return a sick economy to health. The disagreement is how quickly to do it. Too much medicine could kill the patient; too little allows the disease to fester.
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