The Salary Calculator

Rocky road to financial recovery

Although the UK entered recession as long ago as the second half of 2008 and officially exited recession at the end of 2009, a full recovery still seems a long way off. This week was one of mixed messages – some good and some bad.

First came the bad news that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) had increased from 4% to 4.5% in April. The CPI is used to measure inflation in the UK and to compare it with the government’s target of 2%. A low level of inflation (like 2%) is a sign of a healthy economy, but higher rates usually mean that the costs of goods and services are increasing faster than workers’ wages, leading to a lower standard of living. For those of us already finding it hard to make ends meet, this is obviously bad news.

On the flip side, however, there was news that unemployment fell in the first quarter of this year. The decrease was only slight, to 7.7% from 7.8% the previous quarter, but it is a promising sign – as is the fact that the number of people in employment has increased to 29.24 million, just short of the pre-recession peak of 29.57 million.

What does all of this mean? Well unfortunately, these numbers are just a small part of the complex system that makes up the British economy and predicting what will happen next is astonishingly difficult – as no doubt you’ve noticed in the past few years. However, it seems that the economy is continuing on its long, slow recovery from the greatest recession in living memory. The recovery appears to be fragile – which is one of the reasons that the Bank of England has left its base rate at 0.5% for the 26th month in a row. You know what they say – slow and steady wins the race!

Tags: careers, Economy, inflation, recession, recovery, unemployment

Election come down

So after all the hype and canvassing and the debates, the results are in – and it’s a hung Parliament, the first since 1974. What does that mean for your money? Well, first of all, the pound has fallen against other currencies – 4 cents against the dollar and 3 cents against the Euro – bad news if you were about to go on holiday!

Why is this? In short because the value of a currency is related to how confident investors are in a country’s economy. Historically, hung parliaments in Britain are unable to act as swiftly as majority governments, because consensus must be found by the members of coalition parties – who often disagree on certain principles. These delays in acting may hinder our recovery from the recession – so investors would rather not be holding on to the pound. Of course, if it does lead to a slow recovery (or even the “double dip” recession some analysts have been predicting), then this could continue to hit us in the wallet for months to come – with the effects of the recession continuing rather than abating.

Another area that was to be decided by this election was income tax and National Insurance. As I wrote previously, all the parties had set out in their manifestos their intended changes to the PAYE system. I put these all in the Election Comparison Calculator – which shows you want impact these differences would have on you. With no party yet in charge, it’s not clear what will happen about this – whose policies will be enacted? The Conservatives, who have the largest number of seats, said they would hold an emergency budget to implement some of their changes before next year. We’ll have to wait and see to find out what really happens.

Tags: Economy, election, euro, Foreign Currency, foreign exchange rates, holiday, holiday money, income tax, national insurance, Pay As You Earn, pension, Pensions, personal allowance, pound, recession, recovery, tax rates, The Salary Calculator, unemployment

Regional job hunting websites

There’s still a lot of bad news on the employment front, with a lot of large companies making layoffs and plenty of school leavers with no job to go to. You might think that this is a bad time to look for a new job – especially if you are employed at the moment. But there are still employers with opportunities for the right person, and those helpful people at My Job Group may be able to find one for you.

They have many different websites covering all areas of the country, such as local London jobs, my Edinburgh jobs and my Birmingham jobs. This allows them to target jobs to the area you’re interested in, without you having to sort through results to find those near you. They have listings from many local employers and a search engine to help you find the right opportunity for you.

On each site they also have a Careers Centre with tips on how to improve your CV, write a good cover letter or prepare for the interview – some of these ideas and suggestions might be just what you need to get into your new job! If you’re currently out of a job or just fancy a change, I recommend you take a look and see what’s available in your area.

Tags: careers, job hunting, Jobs, training, unemployment

Bad news on the employment front

Well, I’m back from the USA now, and the news in the UK media has been about the recent report showing that unemployment is still on the rise. A quarter of the 528,000 people who have been out of work for more than a year are less than 25 years old. There are thousands of school and university leavers who are just now entering the job market and finding it particularly tough.

However, one good thing to do if you find yourself in this situation is to look for extra skills or experience that can differentiate you from other applicants and make you stand out to employers. You can do this by looking for training courses which are relevant to the work you want to do (for example, you might consider a course on computer skills) or by trying to get some volunteer work to get you experience in the industry.

The market is so difficult now for those looking for work that even this may not be enough to get a job immediately. However, those that have spent the time bettering themselves will be the ones to benefit when the job market picks up.

Tags: Economy, Jobs, recession, training, unemployment

The U.S. economy as one to watch

I’m in the United States at the moment, and the news here is of an economy that is still unstable. A recent report shows that not only are employers still cutting jobs, but that the number of jobs lost in June was more than were lost in May. Despite this, Barack Obama is confident that things are stabilising.

Why is the US economy important to us in the UK? The United States has the largest economy in the world and affects the economies of most of the rest of the world, including the UK. There are a range of ways economies affect one another – for example, if the US suffers from a poor economy there will be less demand in the US for British goods and services, as money is tight. Also, our financial institutions work very closely with those in the US – the bad debt created with the sub-prime loans in the US affected banks worldwide, and our own banks had been making sub-prime loans of their own.

It will be possible for the UK economy to recover before that of the USA – and in fact it might happen that way – UK industry does not seem to be suffering as badly as in the US, and we have a smaller economy to turn around. However, it is most likely that the global recovery will begin only once the US itself is in recovery – and the news over here suggests that’s some way off, at least for the moment.

Tags: banks, Economy, recession, recovery, unemployment, us