Blog

The lastest stories and analysis on the Economist job market

Plastic litter in the UK – any solutions?

Empty plastic bottles on the streets and plastic litter debris in the wider environment are an unfortunate persistent problem of our days. While much is done in the UK to tackle plastic litter through household waste collection and recycling, and special waste collection programmes for businesses, plastic litter is still an issue. In the UK, plastic beverage containers constitute 2 per cent of litter in terms of item count according to INCPEN, ho...

The Rise of Telemedicine

In a previous blog we discussed the pros and cons of remote working.[1] But what about being on the receiving end of a remote service, such as healthcare? Telemedicine is the remote provision of healthcare services using information and communication technologies such as telephone and video, diagnostic and monitoring equipment, and even robotics. It is by no means a new concept, but the pace of technological change and patients’ increasing demand...

Should We Change the Name of the Field of Statistics to “Data Science”?

Most fields of science have names that are neutral, being merely names. For example, the names “physics” and “biology” are neutral names for two large fields of science. In contrast, the name “statistics” is ambiguous. And, arguably, the ambiguity generates a negative perception of the field. So it is sensible to consider changing the name. The name “statistics” is ambiguous because the word has four different meanings. It can mean: 1. the actual...

Does it still pay to be green on Britain’s roads?

What’s changed? On April 1st 2017, the UK government introduced changes to Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). VED has undergone several evolutions in recent years. In 2001, VED was reformed to reflect CO2 emissions rates per kilometre, with 13 bands of increasing CO2 emissions incurring increasing VED costs. The scheme was further reformed in 2013, to introduce separate first year rates which further penalised purchasers of high CO2 emitting vehicles. Si...

E-commerce Parcel Delivery: Problems and Possible Solutions

Online shopping and parcel delivery The quality of parcel delivery has become extremely important as more and more people shop online. In the UK, 3 in every 4 adults made an online purchase in 2016, receiving in total over 1 billion parcels. By 2018, the e-commerce market is expected to grow by about one third, to reach 1.3 billion parcels annually. Cross-border shopping is also gaining pace as (in particular) younger consumers search and order g...

Election Campaign & Statistics

Don’t abuse stats during election campaign, UK Statistics Authority chair tells party leaders The chairman of the UK Statistics Authority has written to the leaders of the main political parties to urge them not to misrepresent statistics in the run-up to the general election on 8 JUne. In his letter, dated 24 April, David Norgrove urged party leaders to show their “support and leadership” in ensuring that official statistics are used properly. N...

Why work from home

The overall number of people working from home in the UK has been increasing in the past years reaching 13.9% of all people in work – a record number since comparable records began in 1998.[1] There are sectors – such as agriculture or construction – which by their very nature are located outside an office, always have been. A more interesting thing is a phenomenon of home workers who traditionally would have worked in an office but have chosen n...

Women in Statistics: Start counting

Are there any women here? asked the High Priest at the stoning in The Life of Brian. Of course, there weren’t any, only bearded men with deep voices. Are there any women where you work? Do they have to pretend to be men to be included? Do they have to laugh at the sexist jokes to get along? Just for today, we’ll ignore the argument that women just aren’t all that good at sums. If we assume, then, that women could have careers in mathematics and s...

When story-telling is censorship: How independent is your research?

“Into the woods you have to grope, but that’s the way you learn to cope. “Into the woods to find there’s hope of getting through the journey.” So sing the Baker, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Jack (of the beanstalk fame) in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. Sondheim himself was caught up in a brief independence and censorship controversy over whether or not Disney wanted to exclude a decidedly 18+ rated encounter between Cinderella’s P...

The job description-reality gap

We left our heroes, Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, trying to get a good price for their sheep at careers fair. This week’s analogy is another market, the oriental bazaar stall that is the job description. You can browse without any commitment and see if something takes your fancy, though you may be hassled by hawkers of sponsored links along the way. Some stalls are stuffed with boxes and illuminous yellow star-shaped hand-scrawled price tag...