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As we head into 2020, we're running the best, most insightful and most essential Worklife stories from 2019. Read all of the year's biggest hits here.
At university, when I told people I was studying for a history degree, the response was almost always the same: "You want to be a teacher?". No, a journalist. "Oh. But you're not majoring in communications?"

In the days when a university education was the purview of a privileged few, perhaps there wasn't the assumption that a degree had to be a springboard directly into a career. Those days are long gone.

Today, a degree is all but a necessity for the job market, one that more than halves your chances of being unemployed. Still, that alone is no guarantee of a job - and yet we're paying more and more for one. In the US, room, board and tuition at a private university costs an average of $48,510 a year; in the UK, tuition fees alone are £9,250 ($12,000) per year for home students; in Singapore, four years at a private university can cost up to SGD$69,336 (US$51,000).

Learning for the sake of learning is a beautiful thing. But given those costs, it's no wonder that most of us need our degrees to pay off in a more concrete way. Broadly, they already do: in the US, for example, a bachelor's degree holder earns $461 more each week than someone who never attended a university.

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But most of us want to maximise that investment - and that can lead to a plug-and-play type of approach to higher education. Want to be a journalist? Study journalism, we're told. A lawyer? Pursue pre-law. Not totally sure? Go into Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) - that way, you can become an engineer or IT specialist. And no matter what you do, forget the liberal arts - non-vocational degrees that include natural and social sciences, mathematics and the humanities, such as history, philosophy and languages.

This has been echoed by statements and policies around the world. In the US, politicians from Senator Marco Rubio to former President Barack Obama have made the humanities a punch line. (Obama later apologised). In China, the government has unveiled plans to turn 42 universities into "world class" institutions of science and technology. In the UK, government focus on Stem has led to a nearly 20% drop in students taking A-levels in English and a 15% decline in the arts.

But there's a problem with this approach. And it's not just that we're losing out on crucial ways to understand and improve both the world and ourselves - including enhancing personal wellbeing, sparking innovation and helping create tolerance, among other values.

It's also that our assumptions about the market value of certain degrees - and the "worthlessness" of others - might be off. At best, that could be making some students unnecessarily stressed. At worst? Pushing people onto paths that set them up for less fulfilling lives. It also perpetuates the stereotype of liberal arts graduates, in particular, as an elite caste - something that can discourage underprivileged students, and anyone else who needs an immediate return on their university investment, from pursuing potentially rewarding disciplines. (Though, of course, this is hardly the only diversity problem such disciplines have).
Soft skills, critical thinking
George Anders is convinced we have the humanities in particular all wrong. When he was a technology reporter for Forbes from 2012 to 2016, he says Silicon Valley "was consumed with this idea that there was no education but Stem education".

But when he talked to hiring managers at the biggest tech companies, he found a different reality. "Uber was picking up psychology majors to deal with unhappy riders and drivers. Opentable was hiring English majors to bring data to restauranteurs to get them excited about what data could do for their restaurants," he says.

"I realised that the ability to communicate and get along with people, and understand what's on other people's minds, and do full-strength critical thinking - all of these things were valued and appreciated by everyone as important job skills, except the media." This realisation led him to write his appropriately-titled book You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a "Useless" Liberal Arts Education.

Take a look at the skills employers say they're after. LinkedIn's research on the most sought-after job skills by employers for 2019 found that the three most-wanted "soft skills" were creativity, persuasion and collaboration, while one of the five top "hard skills" was people management. A full 56% of UK employers surveyed said their staff lacked essential teamwork skills and 46% thought it was a problem that their employees struggled with handling feelings, whether theirs or others'. It's not just UK employers: one 2017 study found that the fastest-growing jobs in the US in the last 30 years have almost all specifically required a high level of social skills.

Or take it directly from two top executives at tech giant Microsoft who wrote recently: "As computers behave more like humans, the social sciences and humanities will become even more important. Languages, art, history, economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology and human development courses can teach critical, philosophical and ethics-based skills that will be instrumental in the development and management of AI solutions.

Of course, it goes without saying that you can be an excellent communicator and critical thinker without a liberal arts degree. And any good university education, not just one in English or psychology, should sharpen these abilities further. "Any degree will give you very important generic skills like being able to write, being able to present an argument, research, problem-solve, teamwork, becoming familiar with technology," says Dublin-based educational consultant and career coach Anne Mangan.

But few courses of study are quite as heavy on reading, writing, speaking and critical thinking as the liberal arts, in particular the humanities - whether that's by debating other students in a seminar, writing a thesis paper or analysing poetry.

When asked to drill the most job market-ready skills of a humanities graduate down to three, Anders doesn't hesitate. "Creativity, curiosity and empathy," he says. "Empathy is usually the biggest one. That doesn't just mean feeling sorry for people with problems. It means an ability to understand the needs and wants of a diverse group of people.

"Think of people who oversee clinical drug tests. You need to get doctors, nurses, regulators all on the same page. You have to have the ability to think about what's going to get this 72-year-old woman to feel comfortable being tracked long term, what do we have to do so this researcher takes this study seriously. That's an empathy job."

But in general, say Anders and others, the benefit of a humanities degree is the emphasis it puts on teaching students to think, critique and persuade - often in the grey areas where there isn't much data available or you need to work out what to believe.

It's small wonder, therefore, that humanities graduates go on to a variety of fields. The biggest group of US humanities graduates, 15%, go on to management positions. That's followed by 14% who are in in office and administrative positions, 13% who are in sales and another 12% who are in education, mostly teaching. Another 10% are in business and finance.

And while there's often an assumption that the careers humanities graduates pursue just aren't as good as the jobs snapped up by, say, engineers or medics, that isn't the case. In Australia, for example, three of the 10 fastest-growing occupations are sales assistants, clerks, and advertising, public relations and sales managers - all of which might look familiar as fields that humanities graduates tend to pursue.

Star performers

Steve Ells, Chipotle founder, art history, University of Colorado at Boulder

George Soros, hedge fund manager, philosophy, London School of Economics

Alexa Hirschfeld, Paperless Post co-founder, classics, Harvard University

Andrea Jung, former Avon CEO, English language and literature, Princeton

JK Rowling, author, French and classics, University of Exeter

Larry Sanger, Wikipedia founder, philosophy, Reed College (plus a Ph.D in philosophy, Ohio State University)

Andrew Mason, Groupon founder, music, Northwestern University

Peter D Hancock, CEO of AIG, politics/philosophy/economics, Oxford

Jodi Kantor, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, history, Columbia University

Stewart Butterfield, Flickr co-founder, philosophy, University of Victoria

Caterina Fake, Flickr co-founder, English, Vassar College

Carolyn McCall, CEO of ITV and former CEO of Easyjet, history and politics, University of Kent, Canterbury (plus master's degree in politics, University of London)

Chad Hurley, YouTube founder, fine art, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Meanwhile, Glassdoor's 2019 research found that eight of the top 10 best jobs in the UK were managerial positions - people-oriented roles that require communication skills and emotional intelligence. (It defined "best" by combining earning potential, overall job satisfaction rating and number of job openings.) And many of them were outside Stem-based industries. The third best job was marketing manager; fourth, product manager; fifth, sales manager. An engineering role doesn't appear on the list until the 18th slot - below positions in communications, HR and project management.

One recent study of 1,700 people from 30 countries, meanwhile, found that the majority of those in leadership positions had either a social sciences or humanities degree. That was especially true of leaders under 45 years of age; leaders over 45 were more likely to have studied Stem.
Be career-ready
This isn't to say that a liberal arts degree is the easy road. "A lot of the people I talked to were five or 10 years into their career, and there was a sense that the first year was bumpy, and it took a while to find their footing," Anders says. "But as things played out, it did tend to work."

For some graduates, the initial challenge was not knowing what they wanted to do with their lives. For others, it was not having acquired as many technical skills with their degree as, say, their IT trainee peers and having to play catch-up after.

But pursuing a more vocational degree can come with its own risks too. Not every teenager knows exactly what they want to do with their lives, and our career aspirations often change over time. One UK report found that more than one-third of Brits have changed careers in their lifetime. LinkedIn found that 40% of professionals are interested in making a "career pivot" - and younger people are interested most of all. Focusing on broadly applicable skills like critical thinking no longer seems like such a moon shot when you consider how many different jobs and industries they can be applied to (though for a young person figuring out their career path, it's true that flexibility also can feel overwhelming).

Specialised technical skills are important in the job market too. But there are a number of ways to acquire them. "I'm very pro-internships and apprenticeships. We've seen that that can directly correlate to you having a more grounded skill base in the workplace," says career development coach Christina Georgalla.

"I even advocate that post-university, if you're not sure, take a year out and instead of going travelling, actually trial doing different internships. Even if it's the same field but in TV, say, broadcasting versus producing versus presenting, so you can see the difference."

But what about the other perceived pitfalls - like a higher unemployment rate and lower salaries?

Why broader matters
It's true that the humanities come with a higher risk of unemployment. But it's worth noting that the risk is slighter than you'd imagine. For young people (aged 25-34) in the US, the unemployment rate of those with a humanities degree is 4%. An engineering or business degree comes with an unemployment rate of a little more than 3%. That single additional percentage point is one extra person per 100, such a small amount it's often within the margin of error of many surveys.

Salaries aren't so straightforward either. Yes, in the UK, the top earnings are pulled in by those who study medicine or dentistry, economics or maths; in the US, engineering, physical sciences or business. Some of the most popular humanities, such as history or English, are in the bottom half of the group.

But there's more to the story - including that for some jobs, it seems that it's actually better to start with a broader degree, rather than a professional one.

Take law. In the US, an undergraduate student who took the seemingly most direct route to becoming a lawyer, judge or magistrate - majoring in a pre-law or legal studies degree - can expect to earn an average of $94,000 a year. But those who majored in philosophy or religious studies make an average of $110,000. Graduates who studied area, ethnic and civilisations studies earn $124,000, US history majors earn $143,000 and those who studied foreign languages earn $148,000, a stunning $54,000 a year above their pre-law counterparts.

There are similar examples in other industries too. Take managers in the marketing, advertising and PR industries: those who majored in advertising and PR earn about $64,000 a year - but those who studied liberal arts make $84,000.

And even while overall salary disparities do remain, it may not be the degree itself. Humanities graduates in particular are more likely to be female. We all know about the gender pay gap, and notable wage disparities persist in the humanities: US men who major in the humanities have median earnings of $60,000, for example, while women make $48,000. Since more than six in 10 humanities majors are women, the gender pay gap, not the degree, may be to blame.

We also know that as more women move into a field, the field's overall earnings go down. Given that, is it any wonder that English majors, seven in 10 of whom are women, tend to make less than engineers, eight in 10 of whom are men?

Do what you love
This is a big part of why there is one major takeaway, says Mangan. Whatever a student pursues in university, it must be something that they aren't just good at, but they really enjoy.

"In most areas that I can see, the employer just wants to know that you've been to college and you've done well. That's why I think doing something that really interests you is essential - because that's when you're going to do well," she says.

No matter what, making a degree or career path decision based on average salaries isn't a good move. "Financial success is not a good reason. It tends to be a very poor reason," Mangan says. "Be successful at something and money will follow, as opposed to the other way around. Focus on doing the stuff that you love that you'll be so enthusiastic about, people will want to give you a job. Then go and develop within that job."

This speaks to a broader point: the whole question of whether a student should choose Stem versus the humanities, or a vocational course versus a liberal arts degree, might be misguided to begin with. It's not as if most of us have an equal amount of passion and aptitude for, say, accounting and art history. Plenty of people know what they love most. They just don't know if they should pursue it. And the headlines most of us see don't help.

This is part of why parents and teachers often need to take a step back, Mangan says. "There is only one expert. I'm the expert on me, you're the expert on you, they're the expert on themselves," she says. "And nobody, I really mean nobody, can tell them how to do what they should be doing."

Even, it seems, if that means pursuing a "useless" degree - like one in liberal arts.

--
Amanda Ruggeri is a senior journalist and editor at BBC.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @amanda_ruggeri.
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Why 'worthless' humanities degrees may set you up for life

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Why bother with degrees like History or English? Here's why the liberal arts could leave you better prepared for employment than you think.

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Why might these shortages exist? What short term and long term solutions could the government use?

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The UK's National Health Service (NHS) will soon begin a major campaign to recruit health workers from other countries to meet growing staff shortages.

Reports suggest a strategy has been drawn up to target a number of countries around the world, including poorer nations outside Europe.

One estimate in March this year said the NHS will need 5,000 extra nurses every year - three times the figure it currently recruits annually.

But what about the countries that it will recruit from - what impact will it have on them?

Where do non-UK staff come from?

The NHS already recruits globally to meet its staffing needs.

More than 12% of the workforce reported their nationality as not British, according to a report published last year.

The biggest group of foreign NHS workers are from the EU - 56 in every 1,000.

But the report noted the number of new staff coming from the EU is falling, and that this decline particularly applies to nurses.

In 2015-16, 19% of nurses who joined the NHS were from the EU.

But by 2017-18, this had fallen to 7.9%.

Which non-EU countries supply staff?

The biggest group of doctors from outside Europe is from India.

There are smaller numbers from Pakistan, Egypt and Nigeria.

As for nurses, the biggest numbers are from the Philippines and India, with smaller numbers from EU countries such as Ireland, Spain and Portugal.

The UK regulator for nursing, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), says the numbers from outside Europe registering for the first time surged by 126% in a year.

Between March 2017 and March 2018, there were 2,724 nationals from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who registered for the first time.

This number went up to 6,157 for the period March 2018 to March 2019.

In the UK, the NHS Employers organisation, which handles recruitment issues, has a list of countries which it has agreed not to target because of their economic condition and the state of their health systems.

It consists of those countries deemed eligible for aid from the OECD, the grouping which represents some of the world's wealthier nations.

There are exceptions under country-to-country agreements which allow for recruitment, such as with the Philippines and some states in India.

Nevertheless, there are staff from other countries on this list who are working in the NHS.

NHS Employers told the BBC that individuals "sometimes come to the UK independently on their own initiative without encouragement or support from the NHS."

What impact might this have?

Some of the non-EU countries which have medical staff working in the UK face significant challenges with their own public healthcare systems.

They spend far less than the UK spends on health as a percentage of GDP.

World Health Organisation (WHO) data for 2015 shows that the UK had more than 27 doctors per 10,000 people, while Pakistan had fewer than 10, and India had under eight.

As for nurses, the UK in 2015 had more than than eight nurses and midwives for every 1,000 people, while the Philippines had 0.24.

Thousands of nurses leave the Philippines each year to work abroad - nearly 15,000 were hired last year.

The number coming to the UK is relatively small, but it has been growing since 2015, according to official data.

Healthcare managers in the Philippines have been warning of growing staff shortages as a result of emigration, media reports say.

But it's worth adding that some poorer countries whose medical staff work in the NHS, receive aid from the UK.

In 2016, both Pakistan and Nigeria were among the top five recipients of UK overseas aid.

Although much of this is spent on poverty reduction, some does go on projects to improve health infrastructure, including training health workers.

There are also projects to create better health education and awareness.

Are there any benefits for overseas staff?

Some experts believe there are benefits as well as drawbacks to the migration of health workers.

Staff who work abroad can learn valuable new skills, and contribute to their own country's economies through remittances.

In the Philippines, the provision of trained medical staff to other countries is an important industry.

And in India, there's now a thriving private sector producing doctors and nurses, who sometimes move to other parts of the country to work, as well as emigrating.

Global competition for trained medical staff is increasing.

As more countries become wealthier, their populations live for longer and start to suffer from the conditions associated with ageing.

The WHO estimates that by 2030, there will be a need for more than 18m extra health workers around the world.

And it says the worst shortages will be in the poorest countries, who have increasing populations, but whose skilled professionals are seeking better paid employment elsewhere.
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The UK's National Health Service (NHS) will soon begin a major campaign to recruit health workers from other countries to meet growing staff shortages. Reports suggest a strategy has been drawn up to target a number of countries around the world, including poorer nations outside Europe.

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National Living Wage rising - why? What impact could this have? 

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National Living Wage rising - why? What impact could this have? 

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A 6.2% increase in the national living wage came into effect on Wednesday.

The increase was announced at the end of last year and was heralded by the government as "the biggest cash increase ever".

The rise is more than three times the rate of inflation and takes hourly pay for people aged 25 and over to £8.72.

It has been welcomed by unions and comes as many workers across the country are on reduced pay because of the coronavirus lockdown.

The government's coronavirus job retention scheme means employers can claim for 80% of wages in order to keep staff employed.

Union leaders said the increase was well deserved as many key workers such as carers and agricultural and shop workers are on minimum wage rates.

"Britain is indebted to its army of minimum wage heroes," said TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady.

"Many - including care workers and supermarket staff - are currently on the frontline of the battle against coronavirus. They deserve every penny of this increase, and more."

The national living wage is the government-mandated minimum wage for people 25 and over. The minimum wage for under-25s will also rise.

From Wednesday, the new rates are:

The National Living Wage for ages 25 and above - up 6.2% to £8.72

The National Minimum Wage for 21 to 24-year-olds - up 6.5% to £8.20

For 18 to 20-year-olds - up 4.9% to £6.45

For under-18s - up 4.6% to £4.55

For apprentices - up 6.4% to £4.15

Employers often worry that a higher minimum wage will lead to more unemployment as they will be forced to lay off workers in order to afford the increases.

But an independent report published last year said there has been little or no evidence of job losses as a result of rising minimum wage levels.

"Employment costs have surged in recent years and are cited as the number one cause of rising outgoings among small employers," said Mike Cherry, national chairman for the Federation of Small Businesses.

But he said a policy to reduce the National Insurance contributions that firms are required to pay, which was announced in the Budget, will help small businesses foot the bill for the wage increase.

That policy is one of a raft of changes to come into force on Wednesday.

Is life getting more expensive?

Spring often brings major price hikes but the picture is more complicated this year - and some of the changes are dwarfed by the impact of the coronavirus on many household incomes.

Council tax will be typically be around 4% higher, prescriptions are up 20p to £9 - that's England only - and the TV licence is £3 more expensive at £157.50.

The big mobile phone providers are pushing up their rates by more than 2% and BT broadband is more expensive too.

But water bills in England and Wales are being cut by 4% on average and the cap on the average standard rate energy bill is being brought down to £1,162 from Wednesday, a drop of £17.

The oil price has fallen sharply, which means energy bills may come down more. So could the cost of filling up the car.

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A 6.2% increase in the national living wage came into effect on Wednesday. The increase was announced at the end of last year and was heralded by the government as "the biggest cash increase ever". The rise is more than three times the rate of inflation and takes hourly pay for people aged 25 and over to £8.72.

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Inside Amazon's warehouse - monopsony power and the effect on worker welfare

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Inside Amazon's warehouse - monopsony power and the effect on worker welfare

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Inside Amazon: The Rugeley warehouse - BBC Newsnight

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Much cheaper & more effective than TES or the Guardian. Reach the audience you really want to apply for your teaching vacancy by posting directly to our website and related social media audiences.
Find our more ›

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Labour Market Failure (2019 Update) | Economics | tutor2u

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Much cheaper & more effective than TES or the Guardian. Reach the audience you really want to apply for your teaching vacancy by posting directly to our website and related social media audiences. Find our more ›

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"When I was growing up my career adviser gave me two options - a nurse and a teacher," says 43-year-old Karen Blackett.

Ms Blackett, who is now the UK chief executive of global media agency MediaCom, last month became the first businesswoman to top the Powerlist 100, which champions the most influential black people in Britain.

Today she is one of the few exceptions to the current lack of ethnic diversity in British boardrooms.

She manages £1.2bn ($1.8bn) of advertising spending for companies like Procter and Gamble, Shell, Universal, RBS and Volkswagen for MediaCom, and earlier this year she was awarded the OBE.

Commerce is now a truly global affair but sometimes it seems that companies have failed to grasp this when it comes to their own staff
Simon Walker, IoD

It's a far cry from her life growing up in Reading as the daughter of parents who had come to Britain in the 1960s.

As for the careers advice, Ms Blackett happily ignored it to pursue her own path.

Being a teacher or nurse are both "worthy careers", she says. But at the time there were limited expectations for her as the daughter of West Indian immigrants. "That's what they felt my career path would be."

These days, while some may question the continuing relevance of lists such as the Powerlist in 21st Century Britain, Ms Blackett insists they are still "incredibly useful".

"It shows the diversity of different jobs or careers that people can go into. [They are] a great source of inspiration for young black people in the UK today," she says.

'Diversity deficit'

Later this month Business Secretary Vince Cable is due to launch a plan to have one in five bosses in British boardrooms come from black, Asian and other ethnic minority backgrounds within the next five years.

The government move comes following a survey earlier this year of Britain's top 100 companies by recruitment consultants Green Park that revealed that more than half of FTSE 100 firms have no non-white leaders at board level.

Green Park also said that Britain's corporate "diversity deficit" could put UK companies at a serious disadvantage in both domestic and global markets.

Recent research by the consultants McKinsey in its "Diversity Matters" survey of 366 organisations and thousands of executives in the UK, US, Canada and Latin America found a statistically significant link between firms with a more diverse leadership and better financial performance.

I personally don't agree with quotas just because there could be negative repercussions
Karen Blackett, MediaCom

UK firms that had a 10% higher gender and ethnic or racial diversity in their management teams were found to have on average 5.6% higher earnings than their competitors.

Meanwhile, companies in the top quarter of racial or ethnic diversity were 30% more likely to have above-average financial returns compared to others in their sector.

However, it is crucial to point out that this correlation does not establish a causal link. In other words, it does not prove that firms are more profitable just because they are diverse - there could well be other factors at play here.

McKinsey is rightly cautious about reading too much into its figures, merely saying that the existence of the relationship is statistically significant and consistently present in the data.

"There is a significant correlation between diversity and performance," says UK managing partner, Vivian Hunt. "We don't claim by any means [the data] is perfect but it demonstrates the correlation."

'Future-proofing' business

Yet intuitively, many in business do feel that it does make clear commercial sense to recruit at all levels from as wide a pool as possible.

"When businesses open themselves up to a wide range of opinions, backgrounds, ages, genders and sexualities - it enables innovation and counters groupthink," says Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors (IoD).

There's no mandate to hire anybody, it's only a mandate to consider someone
Robert Johnson, Chairman, RLJ

"Commerce is now a truly global affair, but sometimes it seems that companies have failed to grasp this when it comes to their own staff," he adds.

Karen Blackett makes the point that: "If you can have people on your boards that can build empathy and understand the target audience, you're future-proofing your business."

When it comes to broadening Britain's boardroom diversity, many are looking to the United States and in particular, American football's so-called Rooney Rule that has helped change the make-up of management within the sport.

Under this rule, when National Football League (NFL) teams recruit a new head coach they have to interview at least one black or African-American candidate.

The rule could soon be in place in the sporting arena in England too, with Football Association chairman Greg Dyke saying a form of the rule to boost the number of black and ethnic minority coaches in England might be "a good way forward".

American football's Rooney Rule explained

The Rooney Rule says that NFL teams must interview at least one ethnic minority candidate when recruiting new head coaches or general managers

It allows the teams freedom in who actually gets the job

It was established in 2003 after the firing of two African-American head coaches - Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Tony Dungy and Minnesota Vikings' Dennis Green

The rule is named after Dan Rooney (pictured above), chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who is credited with spearheading the change

'Employment gap'

The media magnate Robert Johnson, chairman of the RLJ group and the US's first African-American billionaire, is calling for US firms to consider more non-white candidates for jobs.

He wants US companies to interview at least two African-American candidates for every job opening at vice-president level and above.

"The idea is to create something called enhanced best practice," says Mr Johnson, best-known for founding Black Entertainment Television, the first cable television network aimed at African-Americans.

"You do this because it is in the best interests of your company, best interests of the community, and the best interests of diversity in this nation.

"Without that I don't believe you can ever close the employment gap, the wealth gap and the talent gap between white Americans and black Americans," he says.

"The idea is to say to all Americans that this country would be better off if you made sure that the 30 million African-Americans be given a fair chance to succeed in jobs and business opportunities."

But this is not a call for quotas, he says.

"If they are talented, they get the opportunity, if they're not talented, you don't hire them. There's no mandate to hire anybody, it's only a mandate to consider someone for a job."

Mr Johnson says he has been pleased by the political support his proposal has received from both Republicans and Democrats.

Widening the net

Back in Britain, Karen Blackett agrees that a UK corporate version of the Rooney Rule could be beneficial.

"I think the Rooney Rule could be an interesting model," she says, "That doesn't influence outcome. What it does do is influence input.

"I personally don't agree with quotas just because there could be negative repercussions.

"I do believe in making sure you widen the net, because at the end of the day you want the very best candidate.

"You need to make sure you're fishing [in] not just one part of the pond."

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"When I was growing up my career adviser gave me two options - a nurse and a teacher," says 43-year-old Karen Blackett. Ms Blackett, who is now the UK chief executive of global media agency MediaCom, last month became the first businesswoman to top the Powerlist 100, which champions the most influential black people in Britain.

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Click looks at Uber and the importance of data for workers in the gig economy.

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Tackling the UK housing market- a source of geographical immobility

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Tackling the UK housing market- a source of geographical immobility

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UK housing is broken, can anyone fix it?

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More houses are being built - well, that's what every party is saying to get your vote. But how come there aren't enough?

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The problems with the apprenticeship levy

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The problems with the apprenticeship levy

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Half of apprenticeship courses in England have been accused of being "fake" by an education think tank.

The EDSK report says the apprenticeship levy - paid by big employers - is being used on low-skilled jobs or relabelling existing posts, rather than training.

Tom Richmond, the think tank's director, said the apprenticeship scheme was "descending into farce".

But a Department for Education spokeswoman defended apprenticeships as becoming "better quality".

The apprenticeship levy is paid by large employers, who contribute 0.5% of their salary bill into the training fund.

But since 2017, the report claims £1.2bn from the levy has been spent on jobs "offering minimal training and low wages" or on "rebadging" jobs already offered by employers as apprenticeships.

In its first full year of operation, the levy raised £2.7bn and this is expected to rise to £3.4bn by 2023-24.

Apprenticeship spending is too often used on "existing adult workers instead of supporting young people into the workplace", the report warns.

The education think tank says there is an insufficiently clear definition of what an apprenticeship should offer, so much so that the "brand itself has arguably become a meaningless concept".

It describes 50% of apprenticeship courses since 2017 as "fake", saying they do not "relate to helping young people get started in a skilled job or occupation".

The think tank's analysis says that £235m of the levy has been used to support "low-skill" roles, such as bar staff, shop checkout workers and those in "basic office administration".

A further £551m has been used by firms for management training, with the report claiming this was often used for experienced staff rather than new recruits and could include the "rebadging" of existing schemes.

The most common apprenticeship is becoming a supervisor or team leader, representing about a tenth of all apprenticeships.

The report also criticises £448m spent on apprenticeships aimed at degree and postgraduate level.

This includes some academics with PhDs being labelled as apprentices in university training schemes in research and teaching.

It also includes support for degree apprenticeships, which are offered as a vocational alternative to academic degrees.

The report's claims were strongly rejected by Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.

He said there was a need for a wide range of apprenticeships, including those at a lower level - and he accused the report of using "caricatures" which had "no resemblance to the reality of what is actually being learnt".

A National Audit Office report into apprenticeships last year warned: "There are risks that the programme is subsidising training that would have happened without government funding."

The former education secretary Damian Hinds last year told the education select committee that apprenticeships were improving in quality.

But he had told MPs that "in the not too distant past" there had been people who did not even realise they were on an apprenticeship scheme.

The new think tank report says apprenticeships need to be more carefully defined and targeted if they are to "improve technical education for young people".

"If the government wants apprenticeships to be taken seriously by young people, parents and teachers, they must protect this historic brand by scrapping all the 'fake apprenticeships' and benchmarking our training programmes against the best in the world," said Mr Richmond.

"Not only will this save hundreds of millions each year, it will provide more opportunities for young people to train as genuine apprentices, especially those living in the most deprived areas."

A spokesman for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which oversees the development of apprenticeship standards, said: "We work closely with thousands of employers to make high-quality apprenticeships available across the whole economy.

"This has led to a broader variety of apprenticeships up to degree level being made available, which reflects the nation's skills training needs," said the spokesman for the institute, which is funded through the Department for Education.

A Department for Education spokeswoman defended the value of apprenticeships and said they had to meet "high-quality requirements".

She said they lasted "for a minimum of 12 months with at least 20% off-the-job training" and could not be called an apprenticeship unless it complied with such regulations.

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Warning over 'fake' apprenticeship courses

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Half of apprenticeship courses in England have been accused of being "fake" by an education think tank. The EDSK report says the apprenticeship levy - paid by big employers - is being used on low-skilled jobs or relabelling existing posts, rather than training. Tom Richmond, the think tank's director, said the apprenticeship scheme was "descending into farce".

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Migration rules should be relaxed for vets, web designers, psychologists and architects from outside Europe, government advisers have said.

The Migration Advisory Committee says those jobs should be on a list aimed at plugging gaps in the UK labour market.

Jobs which make the Shortage Occupation List (SOL) are effectively allowed to jump the queue for workers from outside the European Economic Area.

The major review said there needs to be a big expansion of jobs on the list.

Under these proposals, the list would cover 9% of jobs in the labour market, compared with approximately 1% currently.

Why is there a Shortage Occupation List?

Only workers from the European Economic Area (EEA) - which includes all EU countries including the UK, as well as Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein - enjoy freedom of movement, travelling and working within the area without visas.

The current scheme for high-skilled non-EEA migrants - known as a Tier 2 visa - allows 20,700 high-skilled workers into the UK each year.

The current salary threshold for such visas is £30,000, and top priority is given to jobs on the " Shortage Occupation List".

If a job title is included in the SOL it means there is:

No requirement to advertise the job to UK workers

No requirement to meet £35,800 salary threshold for settlement after five years

Lower visa application fees for workers and their families

If the skilled labour cap of 20,700 is reached then occupations on the SOL are given priority

Last year, Home Secretary Sajid Javid commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to conduct a full review of the list after the Tier 2 general cap was hit, resulting in a number of occupations being refused places.

The MAC recommended there should be a "full review" of the shortage occupation arrangements once it's clear what the future immigration system will look like.

The government has previously said that after Brexit, people from the EU should face the same immigration rules as those from elsewhere.

What jobs are/aren't on the list?

Examples of professions on the list include:

Geophysicists

Mining engineers

3D computer animators

Games designers

Cyber security experts

Emergency medicine consultants

Paediatric consultants

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) report said that other occupations that were already listed should be extended to cover all roles within the category, including medical practitioners, artists and civil engineers.

Professor Alan Manning, MAC chairman, said: "Today's labour market is very different to the one we reviewed when the last SOL was published in 2013.

"That is why we have recommended expanding the SOL to cover a range of occupations in health, information and engineering fields."

Other jobs not currently on the list which the MAC says should be added are occupational therapists, and speech and language therapists.

In Scotland, it says the list should be widened to include chemical scientists and engineers in the nuclear industry, and Scottish Gaelic teachers.

List raises serious questions for UK

Being on the Shortage Occupation List has important practical benefits.

It removes some of the hoops employers have to jump through to recruit workers from outside the EEA, such as having to advertise for UK staff, and makes it cheaper and easier for overseas staff to enter and potentially settle in Britain.

But the list serves another function too.

It's a reminder - an alarm bell even - to government, industry and the education sector about the areas where the UK has a skills deficit.

Some of the labour market shortages, particularly in engineering and health, have existed for decades and are clearly getting worse.

It begs serious questions about the quantity and quality of technical and vocational training in the country - if the right mix of subjects is being covered by universities and colleges, and whether enough thought has been given to planning for the long-term needs of the economy.

What are the current rules for non-EU citizens?

Anyone wanting to move to the UK from outside the EU, as well as Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, to work or study needs to apply for one of a number of visas.

These range from Tier 1, preserved for investors and "exceptional talent", to Tier 5 visas for short-term voluntary and educational programmes.

The two most common are the Tier 2 skilled worker visas and Tier 4 student visas. Currently, no Tier 3 - unskilled labour - visas are being given out.

Some of these visas allow people to apply to bring dependants such as children and partners.

Visas work on a points-based system and the criteria have got tougher in recent years.

For example, for a Tier 2 "experienced skilled worker" visa, people now need to be paid at least £30,000 to apply, up almost £10,000 from 2011. People get more points for higher salaries or if their job is on the list of shortage occupations.

Most visas come with other conditions, including knowledge of English, the need for a sponsor and agreeing not to claim benefits for a period of time.

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Relax rules for some foreign workers, say advisers

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Migration rules should be relaxed for vets, web designers, psychologists and architects from outside Europe, government advisers have said. The Migration Advisory Committee says those jobs should be on a list aimed at plugging gaps in the UK labour market.