Workers stormed Europe’s biggest steel plant ILVA, which faces closure over allegations of an environmental disaster, as Italy’s government raced to save 20,000 threatened jobs. Management closed the factory’s cold rolling facility, which produces finished steel plates, strips and pipes, after a Monday court ruling to seize the plant’s steel output, which the company said … Continue reading
Federal highway grants to states appear to boost economic activity in the short and medium term. The short-term effects appear to be due largely to increases in aggregate demand. Medium-term effects apparently reflect the increased productive capacity brought by improved roads. Overall, each dollar of federal highway grants received by a state raises that state’s … Continue reading
Sixty per cent of the cleaning staff at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Borden will lose their jobs Dec. 31, the Public Service Alliance of Canada says. Wednesday morning, PSAC will host a news conference to discuss the cut, which will impact 120 people who work for contractor Koprash Inc. “This news is devastating. Yet, these … Continue reading
Older workers have propelled the increase in self-employment that has helped to hold down the jobless rate since the economic crisis began, a Financial Times analysis shows. The proportion of workers who are self-employed has climbed to a record 14 per cent over the past four years – helping to keep a lid on unemployment … Continue reading
Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, a top Federal Reserve official, said on Tuesday that his main concern now was unemployment, not inflation. He said another option the Fed might consider to signal its aims to markets was a target for unemployment, although this would be difficult because monetary policy alone was not responsible for creating jobs. … Continue reading
Private companies running a flagship government employment scheme have put only 3.5 percent of clients into sustainable jobs, statistics published on Tuesday showed. The British coalition government’s Work Programme, launched in June 2011 to help the long-term unemployed find work, divides the country into regions, with each comprising a range of private, public and voluntary … Continue reading
The global economy is expected to make a hesitant and uneven recovery over the coming two years. Decisive policy action is needed to ensure that stalemate over fiscal policy in the United States and continuing euro area instability do not plunge the world back into recession, the OECD said in its latest Economic Outlook. via … Continue reading
Nearly six million factory jobs, almost a third of the entire manufacturing industry, have disappeared since 2000. And while many of these jobs were lost to competition with low-wage countries, even more vanished because of computer-driven machinery that can do the work of 10, or in some cases, 100 workers. Those jobs are not coming … Continue reading
We’re sleepwalking into a crisis. There is much talk of the ‘lost generation’ of frustrated, angry, debt-ridden 20-somethings with diminishing career prospects. Yet employers continue to wring their hands as they pore over inadequate job applications or realise they’ve hired graduates with little grasp of what the world of work actually requires of them. So … Continue reading
The millions of college students who graduate in China each year now face this hard reality: a college diploma no longer guarantees a good job. According to a Hong Kong economist, there is no easy fix, as structural problems with China’s manufacturing-based economy limit the need for higher education. Educators, analysts, and the state-run press … Continue reading
Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Novartis has arranged a crisis meeting of scientists, NHS trustees and Government officials starting today in London in a bid to streamline Britain’s “haphazard” approach to medical research and development (R&D). Science Minister David Willetts is due to attend the meeting, thought to be the first to unite representatives of Big Pharma … Continue reading
Millions of workers are facing insecurity, moving in and out of jobs, and poverty, according to a new report. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) said over six million people classed as living in poverty, were in households where people worked. Excluding pensioners, in-work poverty now outstrips workless poverty, while 1.4 million people were now working … Continue reading
Industry Minister MS Hidayat said on Friday that he supported a plan of top businesspeople to challenge Jakarta Governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decision to set Jakarta’s 2013 provincial minimum wage at Rp 2.2 million (US$228). “I have been informed by Apindo [Indonesian Employers Association] that it will file a lawsuit with the PTUN [state administrative … Continue reading
MINIMUM-WAGE laws have a long history and enduring political appeal. New Zealand pioneered the first national pay floor in 1894. America’s federal minimum wage dates from 1938. Most countries now have a statutory pay floor—and the ranks are still swelling. Even Germany, one of the few big countries without, may at last introduce a national … Continue reading
In a new study, AFASE has laid out the consequences it expects anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on Chinese photovoltaic manufacturers in Europe will have. Expected European-wide is a fall in demand, job losses and price increases. In China, the market leaders boast a capacity of 2 GW or more; in Europe there is no manufacturer … Continue reading