Sarah O'Connor | Financial Times

Thursday, 22 September, 2022

ExplainerRobotics14 min

Will Tesla's Optimus robot become a reality? | FT Tech

Elon Musk wants to put humanoid robots in his factories - and in your home

Tuesday, 20 September, 2022

UK labour productivity

Are the British really the worst idlers in the world?

Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s early characterisation of the UK workforce does not entirely stand up to scrutiny

Tuesday, 13 September, 2022

Corporate culture

The term ‘quiet quitting’ is worse than nonsense

If your staff turn up every day, do exactly what you ask of them, but don’t go above and beyond, they are still working

Tuesday, 6 September, 2022

Trade unions

Forget the 1970s — strikes signal a dysfunctional labour market

Liz Truss is wrong to think deep economic problems can be magicked away with new anti-union rules

Tuesday, 30 August, 2022

Artificial intelligence

Actors worry that AI is taking centre stage

Synthetic voices may not be as good but they can still threaten human talent’s work and rights

Tuesday, 23 August, 2022

Property sector

Why I couldn’t have been more wrong about big city rents

The pandemic has led to lasting changes in the way we work, but that hasn’t made cities more affordable

Monday, 22 August, 2022

FT Swamp Notes

What Brexit teaches the world about migrant work Premium

Britain has ended up with a worst-case scenario

Tuesday, 16 August, 2022

Gender politics

It’s not always the perpetrator who pays for sexual harassment at work

New academic research shows that senior men tend to suffer fewer career consequences than women

Monday, 15 August, 2022

FT Swamp Notes

Can people still afford to be anti-work? Premium

Inflation, falling real wages and turmoil in financial markets may reluctantly push many back into the labour force

Tuesday, 9 August, 2022

Self-employment

Where have all the UK’s self-employed gone?

Britain had a growing army of sole traders, but the pandemic sent that trend into reverse

Tuesday, 2 August, 2022

UK employment

A hotter planet will expose divides in the world of work

Climate change brings risks to health and safety and productivity, and employers need to adapt

Tuesday, 26 July, 2022

UK social care

Exploitation of migrants is rising as care homes struggle to fill jobs

Chronic underfunding of the sector has led to recruitment problems and mistreatment of workers

Tuesday, 19 July, 2022

Social affairs

Young people are suffering a social recession

Rising loneliness among teenagers was a problem even before the pandemic

Tuesday, 5 July, 2022

Working It podcast21 min listen

Is hybrid work a trap for women?

Many women want flexibility but there is evidence it is not good for their careers

Tuesday, 28 June, 2022

UK employment

Young men are slipping quietly through the economy’s cracks

A positive employment trend for young women masks a rise in the proportion of inactive young men

Tuesday, 14 June, 2022

Employment

Farewell to the servant economy

‘On-demand’ services might have made people feel wealthy, but now the model is in jeopardy

Tuesday, 7 June, 2022

UK employment

Why are we all working so hard?

The intensification of work doesn’t seem to be making us richer, but it does appear to be making us sicker

Tuesday, 31 May, 2022

UK employment

Splintered UK labour market makes a wage-price spiral unlikely

The decline of trade unions and rise of self-employment argue against a repeat of 1970s-style inflation

Tuesday, 24 May, 2022

Minimum-Living wage

Why a higher UK minimum wage fails to spur productivity

A British experiment ended up with companies accepting lower profits, charging more or cutting investment

Tuesday, 17 May, 2022

UK employment

Beware the promise of salary advance schemes

Such products look increasingly attractive to some employees as the cost of living crisis bites

Tuesday, 10 May, 2022

New Zealand

New Zealand’s jobs law will cause ripples beyond its shores

Introducing fair pay agreements would reverse 30 years of labour market deregulation

Tuesday, 3 May, 2022

UK employment

Rot festers in the lower depths of the British labour market

Poor regulation of umbrella companies is bad for workers, taxpayers and decent businesses alike

Tuesday, 26 April, 2022

Pension automatic enrolment

When a pensions policy is a resounding success, we should say so

There remains more to do but automatic enrolment has had a transformational effect

Tuesday, 12 April, 2022

UK employment

Why the middle-class capture of apprenticeship matters

Reforms have led to a sharp fall in England in younger apprentices from poorer areas

Tuesday, 5 April, 2022

Working It podcast29 min listen

Is this the end of work as we know it?

Why millions are quitting their jobs, working less, or declaring themselves anti-work

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