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The number of available jobs across the UK went up by 8% for the first three months of 2014 compared to Q1 2013, which led to slight drop in the competition for each vacancy, recent online research suggests.

A raid carried out by the Scottish Prison Service and targeting around 1000 inmates in two jails found that one in five had managed to smuggle mobiles into their cells.

Small and medium employers are likely to take on more staff in the next quarter than larger enterprises, one of the latest research reports from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has suggested.

14 percent of employees participating in an online survey revealed that they’re late for work at least once a week, while 10% admitted that they’re late at least once every month. The survey was carried out by CareerBuilder online in January 2014 and included a representative sample of 1,000 employees across industries and company sizes.

The market size for electronic access control will top $3.5 billion in 2014, driven largely by sustained growth in the American market, as well as emerging regions such as Middle East and Africa, researchers from IHS Technology suggests.

Banking giants Barclays has revealed plans to shed 14,000 jobs across its worldwide operations in 2014 as part of a new strategy, with half of the cuts affecting its UK-based staff.

Close to 1.4 million UK workers are not guaranteed a specific number of working hours as their employers use zero hours style contracts, recent figures supplied by the ONS (Office for National Statistics) have revealed.

The level of optimism amongst the UK’s smaller and medium-sized manufacturers has reached the highest levels since records began in 1988, figures obtained from the CBI’s latest SME Trends Survey have revealed.

The British manufacturing sector reached a 5-month high in April, growing well beyond existing forecasts on account of a strong rise in output and new orders.

The number of advertised jobs vacancies has risen over the course of March by 24% compared to the previous year, but the average starting salary has decreased by £1,800 over the same interval, a new report released by recruitment company Adzuna has recently revealed.

Around 25% of UK employers consider stress and mental ill health a major cause for short term absence, while the figure goes up to almost 45% when it comes to long-term absence, a recent research report published by the Group Risk Development (GRiD), the trade body for the group risk industry, has revealed.

The UK GDP (gross domestic product) increased by 0.8% in Q1 2014 compared with growth of 0.7% in Q4 2013, marking a solid growth, albeit just a bit under existing forecasts.