Brexit Britain is still popular with EU workers

The number of European migrants working in Britain continues to rise despite the vote to quit the EU, official figures show. The number of workers from 14 long-term member states including Germany, Italy, Spain and France rose, while a record 364,000 Romanians and Bulgarians were working in the UK, according to the data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The number of Poles and Hungarians fell, as did the number of non-UK nationals from outside the EU working in the UK. In all, the number of Europeans employed in the UK rose to 2.34m between October and December last year - up 100,000 on the same period a year earlier. The ONS figures show that the UK unemployment rate rose to 4.4% from 4.3% in the three months to December - the first increase in almost two years. However, the number of people in work continued to rise over the quarter while the number of people classed as economically inactive fell. The Mail notes that the ONS figures indicate that the number of working women in their 50s and 60s is now at a record high. The figure in December was 4.2m - an increase of 3.5% in a year. Twenty years ago, the equivalent figure for those aged 50 to 64 was 2.4m.

 

UK workers contributed £31bn free overtime last year

Research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) found that almost 5m people in the UK worked an average of over seven hours a week without pay last year, with the free overtime worth over £31bn or £6,265 per worker. On this basis, the TUC has calculated that the average person has effectively worked for free so far this year, only starting to be paid from Friday. TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Lots of us are willing to put in a bit of extra time when it's needed, but it's a problem if it happens all the time. So today we're saying to workers, make sure you take a proper lunch break and go home on time. We're asking managers to leave on time too. Good bosses know that a long-hours culture doesn't get good results, and the best way to lead is by example."

 

Bad bosses are making Britain’s productivity puzzle worse

Resolution Trust chief executive Gavin Kelly is concerned about the effect that incompetent bosses have on the quality of employees' working lives. Highly competent bosses have an impact on job satisfaction, according to research.  British management is part of our productivity problem. UK practices lag behind other leading economies such as the US, Canada, Japan, Germany and Sweden, and account for up to a third of the gap in productivity between companies and countries.