Productivity

UK apprenticeship levy is a £3.5bn mistake, say business leaders

Retailers, hospitality firms, tech industry and recruiters all say policy is holding back investment in training

Sarah Butler

06, Feb, 2023 @12:01 AM

Boring can be good. How modest Clement Attlee’s unflashy ideas changed Britain

Attlee was a gifted manager, who showed it possible for modest politicians to be successful if they have decent ideas

Larry Elliott

05, Feb, 2023 @11:14 AM

Bank of England raises UK interest rates to 4%

Hike of 0.5 percentage points lifts rates to 14-year high, but BoE says shorter and shallower recession now more likely

Phillip Inman

02, Feb, 2023 @4:51 PM

Poor customer service costs UK firms billions – so why can’t they get it right?

New research estimates that staff spend an average of one day a week dealing with problems. But as our readers tell us, some companies find a way to go the extra mile

Anna Tims

30, Jan, 2023 @9:00 AM

Long-term sickness leaving 1.6m UK adults over 50 unable to work

Campaign group Rest Less says figures illustrate not only a national health issue but an economic one

Amelia Hill and Richard Partington

30, Jan, 2023 @12:01 AM

Hundreds of ‘investment zone’ bids axed as Sunak dismantles Truss policy

Exclusive: council bids for tax breaks and liberalised planning rules axed as government dismantles Liz Truss’s agenda

Aubrey Allegretti

12, Jan, 2023 @7:46 AM

In 2022 Liz Truss tried to bin economic orthodoxy – but what is it?

Rishi Sunak soon rowed back from his predecessor’s chaotic experiment, reasserting the seven pillars of UK Treasury wisdom

Larry Elliott Economics editor

27, Dec, 2022 @3:00 PM

A hundred UK companies sign up for four-day week with no loss of pay

Thousands of employees to be moved permanently to four days in policy described as ‘transformative’

Jasper Jolly

27, Nov, 2022 @2:13 PM

How the autumn statement brought back the ‘squeezed middle’

Respected thinktanks say Jeremy Hunt’s policies will shock Middle England, with higher taxes here to stay

Larry Elliott

18, Nov, 2022 @2:11 PM

The British people ‘just got a lot poorer’, says IFS thinktank

UK has scored ‘a series of economic own goals’, Institute for Fiscal Studies says after autumn statement

Anna Isaac

18, Nov, 2022 @11:14 AM

CBI urges Jeremy Hunt to relax immigration rules to ease UK staff shortages

Lobby group says failure to tackle workforce shortages would be highly damaging for the economy

Zoe Wood

14, Nov, 2022 @12:01 AM

‘We didn’t get a single pound’: anger in Barnsley at broken Tory promises

Successful bids for levelling up money will be revealed alongside the autumn statement on Thursday, but scepticism about the policy is high in the northern town

Mark Townsend

13, Nov, 2022 @10:00 AM