News - WorkScales

Football union chief exec salary passes £1m mark in 2007
Footballers' union chief Gordon Taylor's salary topped £1m again last year, according to official figures. The annual report of the

Pay rise and living costs gap at widest point in 20 years
Employees are suffering from the largest gap between pay rises and increases in the cost of living in nearly 20 years, figures show. Research by pay consultants Industrial Relations Services (IRS) found the average wage in

Jobseekers in financial services face two-month wait for work
Jobseekers in the financial services sector are taking almost two months to find new employment as opportunities continue to wane, research has found. The number of vacancies came in below last year's figures for the sixth

Friday podcast: council CEO merry-go-round, proceeding delay verdict, and rate your employer online
Our weekly HR news and analysis audio programme includes: news that councils are increasingly poaching chief executives from rival local authorities, avoiding having to promote from within or train private sect

France scraps 35-hour working week limit
French president Nicolas Sarkozy has successfully abolished the country's controversial 35-hour working week limit. A law

Trade union membership on the increase in 2007
Trade union membership increased slightly last year despite a drop in the overall number of recognised union bodies, official figures have revealed. The <A href="http://www.certoffice.org/annualRepor

Lying on CVs for job applications rises to 17%
Lying on CVs is on the increase, according to an indepth study of job applications. Pre-employment screening company Powerchex <A href="http://www.powerchex.co.uk/documents/Grads%20from%20top-ranked%20universitites%20less%

Ofsted industrial action sees unions turn to MPs for intervention
Trade unions have called on MPs to give up a small part of their two-and-a-half month summer break to convince schools watchdog Ofsted to increa

Summer blues hits majority of UK workers
The majority of UK workers are suffering from the summer blues, according to a survey. A poll by the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) found 58% of UK workers thought they suffered from 'Summer Seasonal Affe

Advertised salaries in London £11,000 higher than rest of UK
London salaries are now £11,000 higher than elsewhere in the UK, according to analysis by a jobs site. Employment search engine AllTheTopBananas.com looked at 555,000 job adverts published in the last six months for its <A

Police pay talks collapse over demand for 3.5% pay rise
Pay talks between police and the Home Office have broken down, with rank and file officers ready to join other public sector workers in campaigning against below-inflation wage increases. Talks at the Police Negotiating Boa

Energy efficiency has higher priority with employers than redundancies or other staff cost-cutting
Employers now rank energy efficiency ahead of redundancies or cutting staff bonuses as a better way to save money, a study has found. More than half the employers polled said they were looking to save money with energy eff

Skills training non-existent in 75% of north-east food and drink manufacturing companies
The scale of the UK's skills challenge has been laid bare by a regional survey showing that three in four food and drink manufacturers in the North East have no training budget. Research carried out by the National Skills A

Health secretary Alan Johnson calls on employers to help tackle obesity
Health secretary Alan Johnson has again urged employers to help combat dangerous obesity levels in the UK. Speaking at an <A href="http://fabians.org.uk/events/events-news/alan-johnson-public-health-

Moscow crowned most expensive city for expats for third year running
Moscow is the world's most expensive city for expats for the third consecutive year, according to the annual Cost of Living Survey from HR consult

Apprenticeship improvements set out by Tories welcomed by business groups
Conservative plans to cut red tape and help more small firms to offer apprenticeships have been welcomed by business groups. Tory party leader David Cameron yesterday launched <A href="http://www.personneltoday.com/article

Vocational qualifications achieved by 3.25 million UK workers last year
More than three million UK workers received vocational qualifications last year, according to research released to mark the inaugural Vocational Qualifications Day. Research by education foundation Edge found 3.25 million q

Unemployed Londoners need more help from local councils to get work
Councils across London need to do more to help unemployed people into work, according to a new report. Research by lobby group London Councils found that local authorities across the capital were employing a range to initia

Doctors face annual check-ups in bid to raise standards
Doctors will face annual appraisals and have to renew their licences every five years under government plans to toughen up medical regulation. <A href="http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Aboutus/MinistersandDepartmentLeaders/ChiefMed

Black and minority ethnic apprentice numbers are dramatically low
The number of black and minority ethnic (BME) people taking up apprenticeships is dramatically low, new research has revealed. Less than 7% of apprentices are of BME origin, with participation especially low among Indian, b

New Networking Group for Women in Business