employment
Monkey business
How to make money as a token westerner in Japan
Work is no place for your ‘whole self’
One of the few things I have learned in this life is that Dante Alighieri was wrong. In the Inferno…
Bad news, Governor: the wage-rise spiral is already raging
I’ve had the opportunity recently to take part in wage-rise discussions for several small entities in which I’m involved. The…
The four billion people question
Demographers are attached to their theories. The field’s most enduring is the ‘demographic transition’, whereby modernisation inexorably lowers a society’s…
Barometer
Prime numbers As of 29 January Boris Johnson will have been Prime Minister for two years and 190 days. Currently…
Boris offers a hostage to fortune
Most prime ministers would be worried about supply chain shortages. But as became increasingly clear at the Tory party conference…
Was furlough the worst £70 billion ever spent?
Concorde obviously. The Iraq War perhaps? Or Scottish devolution? It is not hard to come up with a list of…
Trouble ahead if we run out of pigs in blankets
This is getting serious. Never mind global shortages of microchips, plastics, copper and container ships; now we’re running out of…
Letters
Wage concern Sir: Martin Vander Weyer’s call for higher wages to end the shortage of British HGV drivers (‘Your country…
Your country needs you at the wheel of a lorry
Here’s a patriotic proposal: let’s form a Dad’s Army of lorry drivers, of which the Road Haulage Association reckons there’s…
The alpha migrants
They’re bright, brave – and could help solve our labour crisis
Vaccine passports could threaten the employment recovery
Alongside the UK’s latest step in reopening, optimistic forecasts have been rolling in concerning the economy’s timeline for returning to…
Who’s the boss?
In the post-pandemic economy, workers have the upper hand
The bonkers credentials game
Sometimes the opposite of a good idea is, as Niels Bohr said, another good idea. But the converse is also…
Japan’s punishing workplace culture
Are the world’s hardest workers about to get a well-earned break? That seems to be the hope of the Japanese…
Routine procedures
Among the horrors, some aspects of lockdown were bizarrely less gruelling than expected; indeed for some people, the experience was…
The problem with the Supreme Court’s Uber ruling
They are monitored by the firm. They don’t have the option of working for other companies. And they are entitled…
Rebuilding welfare
Amid the many failures of public policy during the Covid crisis, one success has gone largely unnoticed. The Universal Credit…
City limits
The phrase ‘rich people’s problems’ has its uses. I once overheard a group in a Knightsbridge restaurant sympathising with a…
Letters
Good conductors Sir: Yes, it is sad to see talents like Sir Simon Rattle and Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla leaving our shores…
Cyber
An advertisement from GCHQ provoked angry comment because it seemed to suggest that some ballet dancers would be better working…
‘Cabin crew can make good nurses’
Thérèse Coffey on stemming the unemployment tide
Some beliefs are more equal than others
Kristie Higgs, a 44-year-old school assistant, didn’t realise that criticising the sex education curriculum at her son’s school on Facebook…
A murderer among us
I was Dennis Nilsen’s boss
Remote workers of the world, unite!
A few nights ago on Twitter, I quipped that I was planning to launch a trade union for remote workers.…
