Tag: jobs

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Podcast episode

EP116 – The Great Resignation

What’s going on with the Great Resignation, the record numbers of people leaving jobs in the US and the UK? Will we see it in other countries such as Australia? What can employers do to hold on to staff? In Episode 116, Economics Explored host Gene Tunny talks about the Great Resignation with his serviced office neighbours Anthony Bersz and Louise Gibson from Remedy Resourcing, a Brisbane-headquartered recruitment firm.

Here’s a video recording of the conversation via YouTube:

YouTube Poster

About this episode’s guests – Anthony Bersz and Louise Gibson, Remedy Resourcing

Anthony Bersz is Managing Director of Remedy Resourcing and Director of Remedy Information Technology. Anthony’s recruitment career started in 2010 working for one of the world’s leading recruitment agencies based in the UK. After a number of years supporting his candidates and clients throughout the North West of England, Anthony made the move to Brisbane, Australia. On arrival to Brisbane, Anthony continued his career within the same global brand supporting IT companies and professionals with their recruitment and career needs. After listening to the candidate and client frustrations of working with a large global agency, Anthony decided to create Remedy Resourcing to provide a more tailored and flexible approach.

Email anthony@remedyresourcing.com

Louise Gibson is Director of Remedy Legal. Louise’s recruitment career began in 2001 (whilst living in the United Kingdom) and for the next several years, she recruited for one of the largest recruitment agencies in the world, before obtaining a Directorship in the North West’s leading taxation and legal search and selection firms.  During this decade, Louise sourced both tax accountants and tax lawyers for Big 4 Accounting, magic circle law firms and other private practice and FTSE 100 companies.

Louise moved to Brisbane in 2012 and returned to the same international agency for several years where she took responsibility for managing the legal, professional services and finance team for their Brisbane office. It was here in 2015 that she was awarded the Queensland state record for the highest fees billed in a single period since records began. At the end of 2015, Louise joined Remedy to head up and develop the Legal recruitment arm of the business.

Email louise@remedyresourcing.com

Great Resignation charts Gene refers to in conversation

Who Is Driving the Great Resignation? HBR article

Top reasons for quitting jobs in the Great Resignation: health fears, burnout, and bad managers Washington Post article

The  Great Resignation Is Accelerating Atlantic Monthly article

Australia’s ‘great resignation’ is a myth — we are changing jobs less than ever before article by Mark Wooden showing Great Resignation hasn’t come to Australia yet

Escape to the country: how Covid is driving an exodus from Britain’s cities (September 2020 Guardian article)

Can Employers Lawfully ask Job Applicants if they have had the COVID-19 Vaccine? article mentioned by Louise in the conversation

Thanks to the show’s audio engineer Josh Crotts for his assistance in producing the episode. 

Please get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com or sending a voice message via https://www.speakpipe.com/economicsexplored. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.

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Economics Explored Live

Livestream featuring US jobless claims, Aussie GDP + farewell to Tony Makin

I did a livestream earlier today (Friday 3 December 2021) with my regular co-host Tim Hughes on the latest economic news of the week, including the latest US initial jobless claims confirming a strong US economy, the impact of the omicron COVID-variant on equity markets, and the September quarter Australian GDP figures which revealed the adverse impacts of NSW and Victorian lockdowns. You can click on and watch the video on YouTube below. You can also download the slides I showed.  

In the livestream, from around 22:05, I reflected on the late Professor Tony Makin’s contributions to the Australian economic policy debate, particularly on whether we should worry about the current account deficit in the late 80s/early 90s and on the effectiveness of the Rudd Government’s fiscal stimulus. On the current account deficit, Tony’s articles, along with the contributions of John Pitchford, clearly led to a change in the policy consensus on the current account, so it was no longer something that would be a macroeconomic policy target. Sadly, Tony died unexpectedly earlier this week. This came as a huge shock to so many of us, and it’s obvious from all the conversations I’ve had about Tony over the last few days just how much respect and admiration his colleagues and former students had for him. Tony’s funeral is on Monday on the Gold Coast (see notice below). 

Funeral notice for the late Griffith University Economics Professor Tony Makin, who will be greatly missed by his family, friends, colleagues, and former students.

Please get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com or sending a voice message via https://www.speakpipe.com/economicsexplored. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.

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Economics Explored Live

US inflation and Aussie jobs data – 15 October 21 livestream

Economics Explored Live for 15 October 2021, the first edition of what I’m planning to be a weekly livestream, covered:

  • the growing concern internationally about accelerating inflation, prompted by the latest US CPI figures (see chart below;
  • the September ABS Labour Force data revealing big drops in hours worked and workforce participation in the locked-down economies of NSW and Victoria; and
  • my state of Queensland’s relatively low vaccination rate (72% for 1st dose vs 84% nationally) and what it could mean for the state’s reopening and the economy – it’s pretty obvious the Queensland Premier should set a date for re-opening ASAP to encourage people to get vaccinated promptly, as suggested by the Queensland branch of the Australian Medical Association.

Here’s the video of the livestream, which was streamed to YouTube and LinkedIn Live:

Regarding inflationary pressures in advanced economies, I quoted leading market economist Stephen Roach from his recent Financial Times op-ed The sequencing trap that risks stagflation 2.0:

As brilliant and lucky as they have been, today’s generation of central bankers is afflicted with the same sense of denial that proved problematic in the 1970s. Due to a lack of experience and institutional memory of that tough period, the risk of another monetary policy blunder cannot be taken lightly.

Certainly, central banks have been running a massive monetary policy experiment with ultra-low interest rates and Quantitative Easing, which have been associated with double-digit growth rates in money stocks. I agree with Roach regarding the potential for a “monetary policy blunder”.

Other links relevant to the livestream include:

Pete Faulkner’s post Labour Force; national data hit by lockdowns while QLD powers ahead

QEW post featuring my The Other Side interview on Australia’s economic suicide

Vaccination numbers and statistics

ABS: New data shows lockdown impacts on business turnover

Cross-posted at http://www.queenslandeconomywatch.com. Please get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.

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Podcast episode

EP95 – BS or pointless jobs

Nine-Fairfax media in Australia is reporting Record number of companies launched as COVID drives contractors, entrepreneurs. A couple of things are going on. There are people whose jobs were destroyed by the pandemic and have been forced into self-employment, but there are also people who have reassessed their lives and decided to quit their jobs and become self-employed.

This shift toward self-employment is understandable, given data which suggests that many workers in advanced economies think their jobs are mostly bullshit or pointless, as the late David Graeber, who was Professor of Anthropology at LSE, emphasised in his thought-provoking 2018 book Bullshit Jobs. Graeber nicely identified the five different types of BS jobs: flunkies, goons, duct-tapers, box-tickers, and taskmasters. I’m sure we’ve all known people who could have been characterised as one of these (hopefully not us)!

Even though I strongly disagree with Graeber’s main conclusions (i.e. many of these jobs really are BS from society’s perspective and we need to radically reform our economies), I must say I really enjoyed reading the book and was inspired to record an episode of my Economics Explored podcast on it. So please check out EP95 BS or Pointless Jobs and let me know what you think about the idea of BS jobs and whether you’ve seen people give up BS jobs to become self-employed or start up new businesses.

Please get in touch with any questions, comments and suggestions by emailing us at contact@economicsexplored.com. Economics Explored is available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, and other podcasting platforms.

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