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The latest news on unemployment, employment, benefits and the economy. Find out who’s hiring, who’s firing, changes to benefits, the unemployment rate and everything that’s new in our world.
The UK's jobs recovery has been based almost entirely in London, according to a new report.
Since the start of the recession, 80% of all new private sector jobs have been created in the capital and thousands have been forced to move there from around the country, says the Centre for Cities.
Those in their twenties are most likely to move, while some in their thirties move out of London to start families, but usually only to the south-east.
Residents of James Turner Street in Birmingham, the setting for controversial Channel 4 programme Benefits Street, have been moved to other areas after receiving death threats.
The Mirror is reporting that some of those living there have been threatened on Twitter and other social media, leading the local council to rehouse them for their own safety.
This was confirmed by a Mirror source who said: "After we named the street in the show, some of the participants in Benefits Street have had to be rehomed. They are vulnerable and we have a duty of care towards them.”
Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is to make a speech today suggesting that the Channel 4 programme 'Benefits Street' has brought home the reality of life in some of Britain's inner cities to the wider public.
In a draft of the speech marking the tenth anniversay of his think tank the Centre for Social Justice, quoted in The Guardian, Smith said:
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UnemployedNet brings you a jobs board each week bringing together some of Britain's biggest recruitment rounds.
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Metro Bank - the high street bank is opening 12 new branches as it tries to challenge the UK's big four, and it needs 350 new staff across a range of sites. The company needs customer service representatives, cashiers, managers and contact centre workers.
Unemployment has shown a big fall in the last three months and now stands at 7.1% of the working population.
But coverage of the issue has focused on the likely result of this fall on interest rates.
Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, has said he will not raise interest rates, which have been stuck at 0.5% since 2009, until unemployment drops to 7%.
It is now looking likely that this will be very soon, and newspapers and news websites have covered this issue obsessively, being concerned about its effect on house prices and the cost of business borrowing.
Labour will top-up Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) by £20 each week for those who have paid National Insurance for at least five years before becoming unemployed.
Rachel Reeves, Labour's work and pensions spokesperson, followed yesterday's confirmation of her party's policy of linking benefits to contributions by outlining an amount for the increase, should her party win the 2015 election.
She told think tank the IPPR:
The Labour party has promised to restore the contributory principle to unemployment benefits.
Those who have paid National Insurance as part of their previous salary will be entitled to higher benefits than those who have not.
This proposal would bring the UK into line with most of the rest of Europe, which sees benefits linked to previous pay.
The fragile recovery has been confined to London and the East of England, according to a new report by the TUC.
People in all other regions of England have seen their employment rates fall despite the overall number in work across the country being higher.
Chancellor George Osborne has called for an above-inflation rise in the minimum wage.
Following Labour's successes in putting the cost of living at the top of the political agenda, Osborne has joined the debate and wants a £7-per-hour minimum by 2015.
After years of smaller rises this would restore the link to inflation.
The minimum wage is currently £6.31 for those aged 21 and over with lower levels for younger workers.
A working couple who were filmed over the course of a year for hated welfare-bashing programme Benefits Street were cut from it in a rush to show the worst excesses of claimant behaviour.