Category: Jobs

Lord Wolfson insisted Next had to make a profit. "If you look at retail over the last 25 years... 70 to 80% of the names that were there then have gone. And what you can't do is say, we just won't run the business for profit because if you don't run the business for profit, you just don't stay in business," he said.He also repeated his criticisms of the government's Employment Rights Act, warning one aspect of the legislation meant it was "going to get much harder" for Next to offer more hours for its staff.One of the reforms includes a requirement for employers to offer guaranteed hours to casual workers in a bid to curb the use of zero-hours contracts.While not a fan of zero-hours contracts, Lord Wolfson said the new rules reduced the ability to offer extra hours at busy times "because the risk is you then have to contract for those hours forever"."You can't afford to... have...

Luke, 23, who studied product design at Central St Martin's University, has not found a job even after applying for more than 400 positions.The application process is quite vile. You apply, but then the [online process] wants to know the exact same information somewhere else in a different form.What you end up having to do is actually go through it again and redo all of it from scratch.Any normal person coming out of a university degree would think: "Yes, I've got a degree. I am now open to all these starting, junior jobs".You find out they haven't got the finances or AI has just replaced a whole load of jobs.The amount of rejections definitely make you depressed. It's humiliating. I started [claiming] Universal Credit in March last year. Entering into the job centres is really depressing. I felt a sense of rejection. The fact that everything I've done means nothing, in this day and age it's useless. It's the Catch-22...

The boss of Next has sounded the alarm about a “dramatic fall” in the number of entry-level jobs in the UK that is driving up youth unemployment, saying the retailer now receives twice as many applicants for each role than two years ago.Lord Wolfson said the clothing and homeware chain, where he has been chief executive since 2001, typically received 10 applications for every job in its shops in 2024 but that number has now risen to 19.“That doubling of applicants for shop jobs is indicative of just how big the crisis is in youth unemployment at the moment,” he told the BBC.Wolfson’s comments came as a report commissioned by the government is expected to find that Labour has failed to tackle the soaring number of people not in education, employment or training (Neet) and must launch a “system reset” involving a fresh attempt to overhaul health and disability benefits.Alan Milburn, who is leading a review into why almost a...

A shock government-backed report this week warned of the danger of a “lost generation” of young people in Britain, as the number of 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neets) rose to more than 1 million.According to official UK statistics, roughly 13.5% of young people are not in work or college. Among 18- to 24-year-olds the share rises to 15.8% – nearly one in six.In the Netherlands, the equivalent figure has been below 5% for well over a decade. According to Eurostat, whose wider 15-29 age bracket produces a higher figure, the Dutch Neet rate was 5.3% last year.The Resolution Foundation concluded in a recent report that if Britain could match the Dutch Neet rate, 600,000 more 18- to 24-year-olds would be learning or earning today.Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister who authored the review, said Britain might not be able to copy directly from the Netherlands because traditions, cultures and structures were different. “But boy...

Rising rates of youth unemployment have created a split at the top of government over how fast it should meet its promise to give young people the full minimum wage.Peter Kyle, the business secretary, is understood to believe now is not the time to give 18- to 20-year-olds the full minimum wage, which Labour promised to do in its manifesto.Others believe there is little evidence to show that recent pay rises for low-paid workers have had any effect on unemployment.Torsten Bell, a Treasury minister, told the BBC on Friday morning: “If you look at what the Low Pay Commission said in their annual report, they didn’t find evidence that previous increases in the minimum wage for young people had had an effect on their employment.”The splits have emerged following a landmark government-backed report this week by the former Labour minister Alan Milburn, who found that youth unemployment was costing Britain more than £125bn a year.Milburn’s report revealed the number of...

If you are eyeing up a career in science, health or research, you’ll be pleased to hear that the UK's life sciences sector is growing fast.Over 60,000 thousand new jobs are set to open up in the sector across the country over the next decade, according to the UK Government.The Life Sciences Sector Plan has just marked its first anniversary and the numbers are pretty impressive.In its first year alone, it helped attract more than £3 billion in public and private investment, a sign of strong international confidence in UK science and innovation. Patients across the country are also benefiting from faster access to new medicines.The life sciences sector already employs around 360,000 people across the UK and almost half of those jobs are based outside London, the East and the South East. In other words, opportunities are opening up nationwide, not just in the traditional hotspots.The new Life Sciences Sector Jobs Plan aims to build on the success so...

Only a month remains until Brewers Fayre - a pub-restaurant business in operation since 1981 - is closed by owner Whitbread, with doors set to be shut across the country on September 7. With 89 branches around the UK - including in Bicester - the family-friendly brand was well-known for its Sunday Carvery menu. Earlier this year, it was announced that it and Beefeaters would be closing as Whitbread restructures its wider business. READ MORE: UK loyalty scheme to end as 3,800 jobs lost and restaurants close Beefeater will shut down all of its sites on September 10, including the branch at the Oxford South Milton Interchange. The Applecart Beefeater at the Oxford South Milton Interchange (Image: Christie Owen & Davies Ltd) Some of the properties housing the restaurants have been put up for sale while others will be incorporated into Travelodge branches, with 3,800 jobs being lost in the process, although Whitbread has...

Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreA notable surge in job vacancies for...

AI usage is measured in "tokens", which are small chunks of text that AI systems use to understand, analyse and generate language. On average, one token is roughly equivalent to three-quarters of an English word.There have been astonishing increases in AI use in 2026, and the increase in token use has vastly outweighed the declining “per token cost”.The world's top companies that are using AI had deployed "token leaderboards" to try to get their employees to create as much gain in productivity as possible from the most advanced models.Trillions, and sometimes thousands of trillions of tokens (quadrillions) have been used over the past few months primarily for “agentic use”, which is for agents that can perform tasks automatically. The problem here is that incredible bills were racked up, so much so that many of those companies have now begun to ration the use of these models.This is important. It might show that there are limits to how much work could...