Firms told: Be honest about difficulties
Survey finds young four times more likely to suffer
BUSINESSES should come clean about the difficulties they face as a result of Brexit and the impact it will have on consumers, it has been claimed.
Catherine McGuinness, head of policy at the City of London Corporation, said business leaders speaking up about challenges is a sign of realism rather than politics.
“I don’t think that’s being political,” she said. “I think that saying Brexit is very difficult and there are real problems here and we need to sort out a sensible way isn’t necessarily being political, I think that’s the reality.
“And I think it is useful when business tells us that’s the reality and it’s going to have these implications for customers.”
McGuinness explained that the Corporation supported Remain before the referendum but have since “adopted a pragmatic approach” and are working with the financial sector to identify issues and “possible solutions”.
Few financial services firms and a minority of business leaders have come out to say that the EU divorce will leave their companies in a better position, the most prominent of which have included Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin and entrepreneur James Dyson.
Martin accused Remain figures of being too negative and claimed the Brexit process is unlikely to have an adverse effect on the UK economy as companies will be able to replace EU suppliers with international alternatives.
Leave campaigner Dyson said he believes 90 per cent of future growth would come from outside the EU.
YOUNG Scots are four times more likely to be in insecure work than older workers.
The gulf between age groups was exposed in figures showing one in 12 under 25s is on zero-hour contracts, affecting around 26,000 people.
There is no guarantee of steady hours under such contracts, adding to concerns over the exploitation of a young workforce.
For people aged between 25 and 64, only one in 15 is on zero-hours.
Labour, who commissioned the Scottish Parliament analysis, want to ban zero-hour jobs if they’re elected to government at Westminster. In Scotland, the party want the SNP to use limited powers to ban them from public contracts.
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard said: “Our economy isn’t working for young people who find themselves more likely to be stuck in insecure, low-paid work. A UK Labour government would ban zero-hours contracts, but there are steps that could be taken in Scotland right now.”
The ban in Scotland could be achieved by refusing to award taxpayers’ cash to companies who use them.
Leonard also called on the SNP to stop listing zero-hour jobs in their “positive destination” surveys for schools leavers.
A spokesman for SNP Government Economy Secretary Keith Brown said progress is being made quicker in Scotland than the rest of the UK.
He said: “No one should ever have to take a zero hours contract, and as a result of the SNP’s work in government the number of people on zero hours contracts in Scotland is lower than in Tory-run England or Labour-run Wales where three per cent of contracts are zero hours, compared with only 2.7 per cent in Scotland.”
The call for an end to zero-hour contracts comes only weeks after the Tory UK Government effectively blocked an SNP plan to regulate the scandal of unpaid work trials.