At age 24, workers born in the late 1990s are paid more than any cohort since those born in the 1950s

Gen Z’s early careers are more financially rewarding than those of millennials, research suggests.

Those typically born between 1997 to 2012 are experiencing a mini-rebound in pay packets, according to the research by the Resolution Foundation, in a seeming contrast to how the previous generation entered the job market.

Kate Dearden says reforms such as enhanced sick pay simply bring UK into line with other big economies

Labour’s radical workers’ rights reforms have simply put the UK on a “level playing field” with other big economies, the employment minister, Kate Dearden, has said.

The government’s Employment Rights Act became law last year, with specific provisions being implemented this year and next.

Struggling pubs reel from rising business rates, wages and energy bills, with customers at limit of what they will pay

Nick Evans is staring in vain at columns of numbers, trying to make them add up to a profit. He is a co-owner of the Old Crown Coaching Inn in Faringdon, Oxfordshire, a pub and hotel whose rich history is etched into its crooked wooden beams and cosy snugs.

Oliver Cromwell stayed here in 1645. A room believed to have been used by the notoriously severe “hanging judge” Lord Jeffreys to condemn rebels now stages happier encounters: it is the honeymoon suite.

Business lobby groups say firms less likely to take on staff with few qualifications or who have gaps in their CVs

British companies are struggling to afford to hire young people after a long period of rising costs that have hit profit margins and derailed recruitment plans, business leaders say.

Rising labour costs including increases to the minimum wage and employer’s national insurance by the government have put young people at the back of the queue when employers consider recruitment, business lobby groups told MPs.

The youth minimum wage is set to rise over this parliament, but it’s putting off employers from hiring people into their first roles

When Keir Starmer was 14 years old, he got a part-time job clearing stones from a local farmer’s field. At 16, Kemi Badenoch was flipping burgers and cleaning toilets in McDonald’s. Me, I waitressed at weekends from the age of 15 in an Essex pub owned by an ex-paratrooper with two formidable rottweilers roaming behind the bar, which was a life lesson all of its own.

But whatever your first job may have been, there’s a reasonable chance it combined the thrill of hard cash with several mortifying mistakes and a crash course in handling stroppy customers, taking criticism more or less gracefully and moaning about it only out of earshot. Though teenage starter jobs have been in decline for decades – for reasons varying from academic pressures on sixth-formers to the rise of side hustles on Vinted that don’t show up in official statistics – everyone still has to start somewhere, even if it’s now more likely at 18 than 14. But getting that start is becoming harder than it was.

Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending

Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now.

He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending.

The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious …

We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work.

We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow, and paid for by working people who can’t afford them themselves.

Chancellor’s fiscal statement billed as decisive moment for fate of Starmer government as she tries to fill £20bn spending gap

Rachel Reeves will promise to tackle Britain’s cost of living crisis and deliver fiscal stability in Wednesday’s budget, which is billed as a decisive moment for the fate of Keir Starmer’s beleaguered government.

The chancellor will say she will do what is needed to shore up the economy as she raises billions of pounds worth of taxes to help offset lower than expected growth forecasts.