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UK Edition
10th July 2026
 
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THE HOT STORY

Concerns about deliverability of work experience guarantee

The government’s new "work experience guarantee" mandates that all state school pupils under 16 complete ten days of workplace experience. However, a report from the Education and Employers charity reveals that only 58% of key stage 4 pupils achieve this target. Barriers include a lack of quality placements and rising travel costs. Nick Chambers, the chief executive of Education and Employers, says: "The government's ambition is absolutely right; but there is a real risk that without a proper infrastructure and funding this policy will simply advantage the advantaged, widening the social mobility gap further . . . Good work experience should not depend on who your parents know or where you happen to live." July has been designated as national work experience month to promote collaboration between schools and employers.
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LEGAL

Employers urged to rethink probation periods

Employers have been advised to reassess probation periods following changes brought in via the Employment Rights Act. New employees now gain unfair dismissal rights after just six months instead of two years. Louise Thawley from Mishcon de Reya said: "Given the removal of the unfair dismissal compensation cap, this becomes particularly acute for high earners." 
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WORKFORCE

Warning for NHS as hundreds of graduates still without jobs

The NHS could face long-term damage if newly-qualified healthcare workers continue to struggle to find jobs after graduation, according to James Buchan, a specialist in health workforce policy, who said there was a "reputational risk" to the service if prospective students no longer saw healthcare careers as a reliable route into employment. Buchan, a senior fellow at charity The Health Foundation, said new graduates expected to be able to move relatively smoothly into a career, and could potentially "begin to get discouraged" and consider alternatives. "The NHS can only sustain service delivery through a good pipeline of newly trained health professionals coming into employment," he said. "If that pipeline reduces or is partly blocked, that in turn creates service challenges." Last month, the NHS' workforce organisation, Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW), confirmed that almost 400 nursing and midwifery graduates remained without NHS positions after the first round of job matching concluded.

DfE ‘engineered very little’ of teacher workforce recovery

The Education Policy Institute (EPI) think tank says the Department for Education has “engineered very little” of a recovery in the teacher workforce. The latest school workforce figures show the sector is benefiting from “favourable conditions”, including falling pupil rolls and a weaker graduate jobs market, the think tank said, while also warning that there is a risk the government may still fail to fix deeper recruitment and retention issues. Official figures published in June showed there were 466,372 full-time equivalent teachers in English state schools in November 2025, down 1,900 on the previous year. James Zuccollo, director for school workforce at the EPI, said the figures tell “a coherent story of a sector benefiting from favourable conditions, but, perhaps, at risk of failing to fix the roof while the sun is shining . . . Fewer teachers are leaving, schools are finding it easier to recruit, early-career retention is near its highest level in over a decade, and falling pupil numbers have eased the squeeze in the classroom.” 

 
Tes
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STRATEGY

KPMG to cut corporate services jobs

KPMG is set to reduce the headcount across its UK group corporate services division by around 10%, with 200 jobs to be cut across a division which includes HR, corporate affairs, marketing, tech, and procurement. A KPMG UK spokesperson said the firm is "looking at the shape of our operating model" after a merger of its UK and Swiss units. Earlier this year, KPMG cut 500 jobs in its audit division, including 440 assistant manager roles in the audit business and 120 roles across the advisory arm.

PwC to reduce UK audit headcount

PwC plans to reduce its headcount in the UK audit division, affecting senior associates and managers. The decision has been driven by low staff attrition after aggressive hiring during the pandemic. A PwC spokesperson said: "There have been a small number of targeted voluntary exits in areas where natural turnover has been low to ensure we have the right skills in place to respond to market opportunities." The spokesperson added that the Big Four firm is "providing those affected with the support you would expect throughout the process."

Tesco explores sale of central and eastern European business

Tesco is exploring a sale of its operations in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in a move that would mark the retailer's exit from mainland Europe and end its three-decade ambition to build a global supermarket business. The company is understood to be working with advisers on its options, although it declined to comment on market speculation. The division operates 561 stores and employs more than 22,000 people, generating £4.5bn of revenue and £115m of adjusted operating profit last year, compared with group revenue of £66.6bn and adjusted operating profit of £3.2bn. Proceeds from a disposal could strengthen Tesco's ability to invest in lower prices, technology and shareholder returns as it focuses on defending its leading position in the UK grocery market.
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REGULATION

AI has boosted regulator's efficiency

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says it has significantly improved efficiency by using AI, cutting the processing time for less complex supervisory cases from up to four hours to an average of six minutes. The regulator is deploying AI to speed up its authorisations process as part of a strategy to become a faster, more data-driven regulator. In its annual report, the FCA highlighted rising financial crime risks, with reported investment fraud losses more than doubling to £1.2bn last year. The FCA said suspicious share trading took place before 41% of UK takeover announcements, up from 38% a year earlier, while whistleblowing reports increased 22% to 1,375, leading to 523 instances of direct regulatory action.
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RISK

Classified report warns on UK food security

MPs have urged the government to publish a classified report warning that the collapse of global ecosystems could severely threaten UK food security within five years. The report is said to predict food shortages, rising prices and wider instability as climate change and biodiversity loss disrupt global food supplies. MPs warned ministers were failing to treat ecosystem protection as a national security priority, arguing greater investment is needed to safeguard future supplies of food, water and other essential resources.
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INTERNATIONAL

US bosses say growing number of mental health absences is becoming harder to manage

About two-thirds (67%) of US companies reported an increase in mental health-related leaves of absence and accommodation requests over the past year, according to a survey by employment law specialists Littler Mendelson. Bloomberg reports on how a growing trend of workers using the Family and Medical Leave Act for mental health is prompting a resource strain, as employers hire temporary replacements or redistribute work. The estimated cost of a missed workday is said to be about $340 per day for full-time workers. Jeff Nowak, an employment attorney at Littler, observes: “Leaves have been consistently elevated coming out of Covid. This is a sustained shift, not a temporary disruption.”

China's gig economy absorbs mass layoffs in other industries

Reuters reports that China's booming gig economy is masking job market pain in other sectors as the property crisis eliminates construction jobs and manufacturers shed workers through automation and cost-cutting. The China New Employment Forms Research Center, a think tank, estimates the number of people without a permanent full-time contract - those in so-called "flexible employment" - has risen to 320 million this year from 280 million in 2025, a number almost as large as the U.S. population and about 44% of China's total labour force. The country's gig economy increasingly hires educated young people and white-collar workers. "The proportion is extremely high," observed Yang Zhan, a cultural anthropology expert at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. "It's no longer ​limited to rural migrants and has spread to the middle class and university graduates . . . China is upgrading manufacturing, and many industries that used to absorb large numbers of workers are being phased out. ⁠Then there is AI."

Unions in Europe seek new worker protections to counter heat stress

As Europe faces extreme heat, unions are advocating for new laws to protect workers from heat stress. They are calling for enforceable workplace thermal limits, based on the wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT), along with mandatory job site heat risk assessments, rights to heat breaks, outdoor shade, water, cooling and adjusted working hours to be included in a forthcoming quality jobs law, in a draft directive text seen by the Guardian. Enrico Somaglia, the general secretary of the European Federation of Food, Agriculture and Tourism Trade Unions (Effat), said: “Climate change is no longer a distant environmental challenge, it is a daily occupational health and safety risk, as well as a threat to job stability. The current European legal framework is clearly not sufficient to defend against it.”

OECD-wide employment expected to grow this year and next

The OECD's Employment Outlook 2026 reveals that the unemployment rate across member countries stands at 4.9%, and has been at or below 5.0% for more than four years. Total employment reached 670 million in May 2026, marking a 26% increase since 2001, and is expected to grow by 0.3% in 2026 and 0.6% in 2027. Despite this growth, real wages are lagging, with one-third of countries experiencing lower wages than five years ago. “OECD labour markets have been strong and resilient – employment is at record highs and unemployment rates are near historic lows,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said. “But workers' purchasing power is not keeping up. The answer is boosting labour productivity with better education policies, adult learning options, job mobility and technology adoption.”
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OTHER

Benedict's Law to overhaul school allergy training

Life-saving allergy pens will be stored in all schools in England from September following a campaign by the parents of five-year-old Benedict Blythe, who died after accidental exposure to cow's milk protein while at Barnack Primary School in Lincolnshire in December 2021. Education minister Olivia Bailey said: "Every child deserves to feel safe and included, but too many families have had to fight for basic protections that should simply be there." She added: "This change is thanks to the tireless efforts of Helen and Peter Blythe, who have turned unimaginable tragedy into lasting change that will protect thousands of children for generations to come."
 
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