2014

The UK labour market continues to improve with the number of jobs increasing by nine percent year-on-year (YOY), according to statistics from the Q2 2014 totaljobs.com Barometer, which analyses the behaviour of 5.9 million British jobseekers and 5,000 recruiters. Competition also rose, with the number of applications for each job rising by three per cent year-on-year. The East Midlands saw the biggest increase, with a 17 percent rise in the number of job postings, followed closely by Yorkshire at 16 percent. Other big winners included jobseekers in Wales, the North West, the North East, and East Anglia, which saw job opportunities jump 12 percent YOY.

Employers have a duty to prevent illegal working and are obliged to carry out prescribed document checks on individuals before they commence work to ensure they have permission to work in the UK. Employers may be liable to an increased civil penalty of up to ?20,000 for each illegal worker if they fail to carry out the necessary checks correctly, or at all, and are found to be employing someone who doesn't have the right to work in the UK. In order to avoid these penalties it is important for employers to be aware of the recent changes to the prescribed document checks.

"Effective August 1, 2014, Louisiana joined at least sixteen other states who have enacted laws prohibiting or restricting employers from accessing employees' personal online accounts - including social media, email accounts, or any other online accounts which the employee uses for anything other than a purely business-related reasons. The ""Personal Online Account Privacy Protection Act,"" states that no employer may ""request or require"" any employee or job applicant to disclose the username, password, or any other authentication information related to a ""personal online account."" Extreme caution should still be exercised whenever dealing with an employee's non-business related social media or similar account."