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    Sarah O'Connor

    Employment columnist

    Sarah O'Connor is a columnist, reporter and associate editor at the Financial Times. She writes a weekly column focused on the world of work, as well as longer reported articles.

    She joined the FT in 2007 and has covered the US economy from Washington DC, the UK economy from London and the financial crisis from Iceland.

    Email Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnor_  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)
    Email Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnor_  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)

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    • Tuesday, 2 August, 2022
      UK employment
      A hotter planet will expose divides in the world of work

      Climate change brings risks to health and safety and productivity, and employers need to adapt

    • Tuesday, 26 July, 2022
      UK social care
      Exploitation of migrants is rising as care homes struggle to fill jobs

      Chronic underfunding of the sector has led to recruitment problems and mistreatment of workers

    • Tuesday, 19 July, 2022
      Social affairs
      Young people are suffering a social recession

      Rising loneliness among teenagers was a problem even before the pandemic

    • Tuesday, 5 July, 2022
      Working It podcast21 min listen
      Is hybrid work a trap for women?

      Many women want flexibility but there is evidence it is not good for their careers

    • Tuesday, 28 June, 2022
      UK employment
      Young men are slipping quietly through the economy’s cracks

      A positive employment trend for young women masks a rise in the proportion of inactive young men

    • Tuesday, 14 June, 2022
      Employment
      Farewell to the servant economy

      ‘On-demand’ services might have made people feel wealthy, but now the model is in jeopardy

    • Tuesday, 7 June, 2022
      UK employment
      Why are we all working so hard?

      The intensification of work doesn’t seem to be making us richer, but it does appear to be making us sicker

    • Tuesday, 31 May, 2022
      UK employment
      Splintered UK labour market makes a wage-price spiral unlikely

      The decline of trade unions and rise of self-employment argue against a repeat of 1970s-style inflation

    • Tuesday, 24 May, 2022
      Minimum-Living wage
      Why a higher UK minimum wage fails to spur productivity

      A British experiment ended up with companies accepting lower profits, charging more or cutting investment

    • Tuesday, 17 May, 2022
      UK employment
      Beware the promise of salary advance schemes

      Such products look increasingly attractive to some employees as the cost of living crisis bites

    • Tuesday, 10 May, 2022
      New Zealand
      New Zealand’s jobs law will cause ripples beyond its shores

      Introducing fair pay agreements would reverse 30 years of labour market deregulation

    • Tuesday, 3 May, 2022
      UK employment
      Rot festers in the lower depths of the British labour market

      Poor regulation of umbrella companies is bad for workers, taxpayers and decent businesses alike

    • Tuesday, 26 April, 2022
      Pension automatic enrolment
      When a pensions policy is a resounding success, we should say so

      There remains more to do but automatic enrolment has had a transformational effect

    • Tuesday, 12 April, 2022
      UK employment
      Why the middle-class capture of apprenticeship matters

      Reforms have led to a sharp fall in England in younger apprentices from poorer areas

    • Tuesday, 5 April, 2022
      Working It podcast29 min listen
      Is this the end of work as we know it?

      Why millions are quitting their jobs, working less, or declaring themselves anti-work

    • Tuesday, 5 April, 2022
      Amazon.com
      Union victory for Amazon warehouse could change US labour movement

      Grassroots Staten Island win shows the power of organising from the bottom up

    • Tuesday, 29 March, 2022
      UK employment
      The P&O debacle shows that UK labour law needs an overhaul

      There are too many loopholes and grey areas that unscrupulous employers can exploit

    • Tuesday, 22 March, 2022
      Future of work
      A four-day week might benefit employers as well

      Experiments have shown that workers’ hours can be cut without a corresponding drop in output

    • Thursday, 17 March, 2022
      FT Magazine
      How did a vast Amazon warehouse change life in a former mining town?

      Ten years after her groundbreaking investigation into the retail giant, Sarah O’Connor returns to Rugeley to find out what’s changed

    • Tuesday, 15 March, 2022
      War in Ukraine
      Europe has done the right thing by allowing Ukrainian refugees to work

      But access to employment must be underpinned by services to help new arrivals to support themselves

    • Thursday, 3 March, 2022
      FT CollectionsClaudia Goldin
      Claudia Goldin: ‘Greedy work has been made less greedy’

      The pandemic has helped facilitate flexible working, which might make top jobs more compatible with family life

    • Tuesday, 1 March, 2022
      Coronavirus economic impact
      Better UK sick pay will help us live with Covid

      Britain lags behind countries like Germany in the help it gives to workers who fall ill

    • Tuesday, 22 February, 2022
      Artificial intelligence
      Never mind Big Tech — ‘little tech’ can be dangerous at work too

      ‘Algorithmic management’ is spreading beyond gig platforms and logistics warehouses to other sectors

    • Tuesday, 15 February, 2022
      UK immigration
      Keeping asylum seekers in limbo is bad for everyone

      ‘Human capital’ is damaged when people are shut out of labour markets and forced to sit idle

    • Tuesday, 8 February, 2022
      UK employment
      In unequal Britain, why aren’t there more Dick Whittingtons?

      The government’s ambition to spread highly-skilled jobs more evenly around the country is a good one

    Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

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