The Work for the Dole program could again become a core element of welfare policy for the unemployed in Australia, but there is a considerable body of evidence which shows it is unlikely to help people…
Yeshpal Singh is in his early thirties, his hair already streaked with grey. He sits in a university in the north Indian city of Meerut. Catch him on a good day, and he’ll tell you that he is a PhD physics…
Moving some sole parents onto the lower Newstart payments has pushed up the numbers.
Alan Porritt/AAPIMAGE
Social services minister Kevin Andrews has targeted the Disability Support Pension and Newstart, the main payment for the unemployed, for reform, branding the current level of welfare as unsustainable…
All aboard the big bucks bus … not you, sir…
Phil Wilkinson/The Scotsman/PA Wire
In a new report, Working For The Few, Oxfam warns that the fight against poverty cannot be won until wealth inequality has been tackled. The wealth of the richest 1% in the world amounts to $110 trillion…
In the UK today, there are sizeable inequalities in health – and sometimes that gap isn’t just about north versus south. In Stockton Tees in the north-east of England, for example, there’s a 15-year gap…
Unemployment is expected to rise in 2014, and some suburbs of Australia will be harder hit than others.
eliduke/Flickr
Australians are heading into 2014 with job vacancies falling, and Australian Treasury forecasts and monthly labour force data all pointing to rising levels of unemployment in the year ahead. Some local…
Use-by dates: human chromosomes with their telomeres highlighted.
NASA
A new study sheds light on why natural spaces in cities can help keep us healthy. Researchers found that people living in neighbourhoods with a large amount of green space, such as parks or playing fields…
Unemployment has higher psychic costs for workers who identify with the Protestant work ethic.
Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com
Recently released labour force figures have shown a rise in unemployment figures to 5.8% and, with Treasury’s budget update slating a rise to 6.25% by the end of the financial year, the future doesn’t…
Tony Abbott has promised not to cut areas such as health, education and payments to the poor and disadvantaged, but a Commission of Audit report traditionally trumps such Liberal National Party promises.
AAP
There has been much, and justified, criticism, of Tony Abbott’s decision to conceal the costings of his policies until two days before the election, when the electronic media blackout will be in place…
Jobs growth is a centrepiece political promise for both political parties but nothing has been said on what type of jobs these will be. At least President Obama told Americans in his 2013 State of the…
Even on sale, payday loans are getting us into more financial trouble.
PA
Britain is currently experiencing its longest and deepest economic slump in a century. But through new research we’re only just beginning to realise quite how dramatic the impact of this recession has…
Don’t bust out the champagne yet: not everyone will be able to afford it.
Toni Blay
With economic “green shoots” appearing, you might expect to see improvements in the labour market, with higher wages and lower unemployment. But don’t get the champagne out just yet: this crisis isn’t…
Australia’s unemployment is 5.5%. How does that stack up internationally?
APH
“Australia has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world.” - Finance minister Penny Wong, The Drum opinion article, 14 January. Several ministers, including finance minister Penny Wong…
Australia enjoys a privileged relationship with most economies in the Asian region because of the integrated global value chain.
Image sourced from www.shutterstock.com
Australia is facing increasingly stiff competition from developed economies all vying for a share of the growth pie in the East and South Asian region, where Australia has integrated its value chain activities…
Smash the system, not traffic lights.
flikr/bobaliciouslondon
A fifth of Britain’s young people are out of work; how long before they snap? The International Labour Organisation has recently issued warnings about possible youth unrest in the future, as young people…
John Van Reenen, London School of Economics and Political Science
The UK labour market has done much better than expected since the start of the recession. Although we are suffering the worst recovery for over a century – national income has shrunk by almost 3% since…
Professorial Research Fellow and Deputy Director (Research), HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne