EDITION 875
28 JUNE 2021

As another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday at 10am. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did.

1. How to fill the void in your resume. Many of us have experienced that awkward pause in an interview when the interviewer asked, "So, tell us about the two-year gap between job X and job Y?" Well, what if we told you didn't have to cringe at that question anymore? Hiring managers have a new awareness of the ebbs and flows of personal and professional lives and have chipped away at the stigma around career pauses. READ MORE

2. Bank shrugs off inflation fears. The Bank of England has forecast a temporary surge in inflation above 3% - but insisted the increase would be short-lived and will not cause problems. Despite growing fears that ultra-low interest rates are creating conditions for the next economic crisis, policymakers voted against combatting the rise by hiking interest rates, which will remain at their record-low level of 0.1%. Economists say the Covid emergency is now over. The Financial Times

3. The best day to work from home. As hybrid work becomes a likely scenario for tens of millions of professionals after the pandemic, deciding which day to work from home is set to become an important calculation. A recent article in the Economist has a few tips: Monday is too obvious, signalling you haven’t recovered from weekend festivities; Tuesday is good but breaks the week in uneven chunks; Wednesday is likely ideal; Thursday at home will only make Friday harder; Friday, like Monday, is far too suspicious. What's the best day to work from home? Let us know in our poll. VOTE HERE

4. Responsibility to replace rules in July. Sajid Javid, who replaced the disgraced Matt Hancock as the new health secretary over the weekend, expects to lift all remaining restrictions including social distancing and the requirement to wear masks on 19 July after ministers were encouraged by the very, very low number of deaths from coronavirus and the slowdown in infections. A source said that ministers want to get as close to normal as possible on 19 July with an emphasis on personal responsibility rather than laws and regulations. The Times

5. Students say degrees poor value. Almost half of all students thought their degree offered poor value for money this year, according to a survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute. Twice as many students thought their courses offered poor value (44%) than in 2019-20, despite pandemic disruption that year. Nicola Dandridge, the chief executive of the Office for Students, the university regulator, has urged institutions to be more open with students about the likelihood of face-to-face teaching so that they have realistic expectations. The Guardian

6. UK deaths outnumber births for first time in 40 years. Last year more deaths than births were registered in the UK for the first time since 1976. In total, just over 683,000 births were registered compared with nearly 690,000 deaths. This was only the second time deaths have outnumbered births since the late 1890s. The coronavirus epidemic led to a sharp rise in deaths last year but birth rates have also been falling for the last decade. BBC

7. Government to cull train announcements. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has promised to reduce the amount of “annoying” announcements on trains and in stations. In a recent white paper, the transport secretary says there will be “fewer annoying and repetitious recorded announcements”. During a journey of two hours and 33 minutes from Manchester to London last week, passengers were subjected to 17 automated messages, including three doses of: “See it, say it, sorted.” The Sunday Times

8. Democratising the right to laziness. At least ten different on-demand grocery companies have emerged over the last year, with names that sound like Snow White’s other dwarves: Weezy, Jiffy, Dija, Zapp, Fancy, Getir and Gorillas. Partly fuelled by the pandemic, millions more now shop for food online. In February 2020, only £7.40 of every £100 spent on groceries in the UK was bought online, according to Kantar, an industry research company. By February this year, it was up to £15.40. A generation of change squeezed into a year. The Guardian

9. Mispronunciation is all the rage. Pacifically, which – said instead of the word “specifically” – was found to be the most annoying mispronunciation in a survey of 2,000 Britons. Next came probly for probably and expresso for espresso. “Nucular”, “excetera” and “assessory” also featured. The Telegraph

10. The bottom line. Cash was used for only 17% of all payments in 2020 – down from 45% in 2015 and 56% in 2010. The Guardian