Port Talbot closure highlights uncomfortable truth about clinging onto the past
The decision by Tata Steel to shut the blast furnaces at the steelworks in Port Talbot, South Wales, has provoked outrage. Almost three quarters of the 4,000 workers at the plant will lose their jobs. On the same day that the news broke, the government announced a £500m subsidy for Tata’s £1.25bn proposed investment on the […]
They may be annoying, but Gen Z’s quarter life gap years are economically rational
Generation Z has been getting a lot of bad press recently. Allegations that they enjoy “quiet quitting” and boast of their “lazy girl jobs” were gathering momentum last year. These were given a huge boost in November when the American television personality Whoopi Goldberg made headlines with her claim that they just were not willing […]
The post-pandemic workplace and office employment densities in central London
Historically, office employment densities in London have been consistently increasing as more workers have been fit into smaller spaces. It is likely that average office employment densities for prime urban areas reached as high as one full-time equivalent job per 10sqm of office space before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (hereafter ‘the pandemic’). Ostensibly […]
Learnings from our 2023 work experience programme
Volterra are delighted to have hosted four work experience placements over the past two weeks at our Kennington office. The benefits of work experience placements for students are well documented. Readers won’t be surprised to hear that a good quality placement helps grow the students’ confidence, improves their core skillsets and consolidates their career paths […]
A warm welcome to Andrew and Roberto
Volterra is delighted to announce the arrival of two new economic consultants, Andrew Cuttle and Roberto Vedova. Andrew has previous experience in cost-benefit analysis and developing business cases for large government-funded rail projects. He also has experience as an economist at the UK’s rail regulating body, reviewing operator access charges as part of Network Rail’s […]
This Christmas, let’s all reconsider how we think about innovation, jobs and wages
There is still time to have a last minute Christmas present delivered. No, of course not by Royal Mail; but one of its enthusiastic competitors will do the job. Given the impact which technology in general and the internet in particular has had on postal service, it is hard to imagine a more pointless strike […]
How did employment change during the COVID-19 pandemic? Insight from the recent ONS BRES survey
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the nation’s most highly anticipated provisional estimates for employment in October, the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES). With 85,000 businesses surveyed in Great Britain and a response rate of 69.5%, BRES is regarded as the go to source for employment statistics. This latest release provides us with […]
How will London grow? The updated 2022 GLA growth forecasts
Over the past twenty years the Greater London Authority (GLA) has produced forecasts of population and employment growth across the capital. These forecasts help us understand how and where the capital is expected to grow or change in future years. The GLA has recently produced an update to their employment forecasts, updating previous projections produced […]
Central banks have fooled themselves into thinking they have power over inflation
The failures of central banks around the world to anticipate and control the current upsurge in inflation are now apparent to all. What has been going on with the highly technical models which economists in these institutions build to try and explain inflation? If we look under the bonnet, we find a debate which is […]
As Johnson squirms, his party must remember the roots of Conservatives values
Boris Johnson’s government now has a penchant for embracing policies which, to many, have a distinctively non-conservative feel. High taxes, a big state. What’s next? An old idea which is currently being given new legs is that of a universal basic income (UBI). The basic concept is that all citizens of a country receive from […]
