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Michael O'Connor
Michael O'Connor

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Nov 11, 2021

Weighting in Vain

Back in January, Jonathan Portes and I conducted a thought experiment that led us to conclude that considerably more EU migrants might have left the UK in the course of the pandemic than officially estimated, published here. Not everyone agreed, including reputable voices like Prof Ian Gordon at LSE here…

Brexit

22 min read

Weighting in Vain
Weighting in Vain

Sep 3, 2021

Who cares?

Reading more and more articles about the unsustainability of the care sector and how taxes need raising and/or a staffing crisis solved by letting in people to do low-waged jobs I was reminded again of the corporate boondoggling that makes me look at such claims with a rather jaundiced eye. …

Taxes

8 min read

Who cares?
Who cares?

Jun 17, 2021

ECJ musing (O.D. edition)

In an interesting new piece a couple of weeks back on the EU Law Analysis blog, Virginia Passalacqua writes about the case of O.D. and others, C-350/20 referred last year to the European Court of Justice. On the face of it, it’s a fairly anodyne case about whether Italy can…

Ecj

6 min read

ECJ musing (O.D. edition)
ECJ musing (O.D. edition)

Feb 22, 2021

The Uber Supremacy (not)

The UK Supreme Court has now delivered its final verdict on the question of whether Uber Drivers are workers for the purpose of various bits of UK employment law. The full and admirably clear judgement handed down on 19 February 2021 can be found here. The conclusion, contrary to Uber’s…

Uber

10 min read

The Uber Supremacy
The Uber Supremacy

Nov 28, 2019

Big bills?

The Conservatives have put out a scary story about continued free movement under a Labour government… New analysis has revealed that Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to continue free movement with EU countries would cost DWP over £4 billion in extra benefit costs over the next 10 years, dramatically increasing the size…

Brexit

4 min read

Big bills?
Big bills?

Nov 8, 2019

Who’s left (now)?

Back in April I blogged about how the number of EU workers in the UK had changed between the referendum and the end of 2018 and concluded that while higher-skilled jobs in the UK continued to be attractive to people from around the EU, lower-skilled ones had become less so…

Brexit

6 min read

Who’s left (now)?
Who’s left (now)?

Aug 22, 2019

Fascinating Facts IV

HMRC released a new publication today about taxes paid and benefits received by EEA nationals. This covers the tax year 2016/17 and is the fourth annual instalment so we can look at continuing trends Observations by me on the publication for 2013/14 can be found here, here and here, for…

Economics

7 min read

Fascinating Facts IV
Fascinating Facts IV

May 2, 2019

More elephant-spotting

Regular readers will know about the Elephant Trap on which I’ve blogged on several occasions. You fall into the trap when you use the term ‘new jobs’ to describe net growth in employment. Things like ‘Most new jobs are in the public sector’ or ‘Half of new jobs are taken…

Disability

6 min read

Elephant-spotting
Elephant-spotting

Apr 5, 2019

Who’s left?

There’s been plenty of anecdote about a Brexodus of EU nationals from the UK, what with all the uncertainty and hostility generated by the referendum and subsequent developments. And business responses to the government White Paper on a new immigration system seem universally alarmed at the prospect of proposals that…

Brexit

6 min read

Who’s left?
Who’s left?

Feb 26, 2019

More Uber developments

The question of whether Uber’s Riders enter into a contract with Uber or with individual Drivers was decided by the Court of Appeal last December in deciding what employment rights the Drivers had. The fairly scathing lead judgement, which found that the Drivers were actually working for Uber, said For…

Uber

10 min read

More Uber developments
More Uber developments
Michael O'Connor

Michael O'Connor

mainly welfare and tax

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