Human Times

UK Edition

29th June 2026

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THE HOT STORY

London will require private investors to deal with heat

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said the city's efforts to deal with rising temperatures will require the help of private investors due to the considerable financial cost. “This is an environmental crisis, but also it’s an economic crisis, a public health crisis, and a social justice crisis,” Khan said. “The costs of inaction outweigh the cost of action, but also we recognize we can’t do this by ourselves from City Hall.” The Mayor's office has set out an inaugural plan to deal with extreme heat in the age of climate change, including a concession to air conditioning, of which it was previously sceptical due to the energy required to run units. Meanwhile, Khan has said there should be a maximum and minimum limit for how hot workplaces and classrooms get before they close. “Sometimes in winter months schools and workplaces shouldn’t be too cold just as in summer they shouldn’t be too hot . . . I think it’s really important for each individual employer and headteacher to make a common-sense decision based on what’s right for them.”

Bloomberg

LBC

London Evening Standard

HR TRANSFORMATION

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WORKFORCE

Just 6% of graduates repay more than their loan interest

New figures from the Student Loans Company reveal that as of May, around 4.4m graduates with Plan 2 student loans have debts that have grown since they started making repayments. Just 6% of graduates with Plan 2 loans are managing to outpace their interest payments. Oliver Gardner from the Rethink Repayment campaign said the figures were a "sad indictment" of the student loan system. "All graduates want is for it to be achievable to pay back what they initially borrowed to fund their university education, rather than being caught in this vicious cycle of an ever-increasing student loan balance, even while making significant repayments each month," he said.

The Times

Parents lose out as children stay off school

Research commissioned by Minerva Virtual Academy and conducted by Censuswide has found that significant numbers of parents have been forced to quit work or take unpaid leave due to their children not attending school. The firm found that 36% of parents were forced to take at least a month of unpaid leave because of their child's absences, with two in five of those losing more than £10,000, while 32% of fathers polled had to leave their jobs altogether. Minerva founder Hugh Viney said parents "are managing severe anxiety in their children while holding down jobs and navigating a system that too often leaves them feeling blamed rather than helped," and stressed the need to "improve signposting, and intervene earlier."

Daily Mirror

The Daily Telegraph

HIRING

More targeted subsidies needed for Neets, think tank says

The Resolution Foundation says targeted subsidies, rather than tax breaks, are needed to help employers tackle Britain's youth employment crisis. The think tank argues that expanding existing schemes is a more cost-effective way to address inactivity than reversing the increase in employers' national insurance contributions. The foundation wants the government to expand schemes such as the youth jobs grant, which offers employers £3,000 to hire an 18 to 24-year-old who has received universal credit for six months or more, and jobs guarantee, which funds six months' part-time employment for those out of work at least 18 months

The Times

Lidl guarantees interviews for jobseekers

Lidl has announced a recruitment initiative reserving a tenth of interview slots at new UK stores for people who have been unemployed for at least six months. The scheme will also include at least 480 interview places across its warehouses over the next year. Applicants will be fast-tracked to interview without submitting a CV, with support from the Department for Work and Pensions and the Restart scheme. Lidl said the move aims to remove barriers to work amid rising unemployment pressures. It comes as UK job vacancies fall to a five-year low and youth inactivity reaches its highest level in over a decade.

Daily Mail

The Sun

LEGAL

Leeds facing thousands of equal pay claims

The GMB trade union has warned that Leeds City Council could face equal pay claims totalling hundreds of millions of pounds from more than 4,000 female workers left worse off by "structural differences" in pay for roles predominantly filled by women and those predominantly filled by men. Organiser Rachel Robertson said that until "every one of them has received what they were owed, GMB will be ramping up the campaign for pay justice."

Yorkshire Post

ECONOMY

UK government split over new ‘golden visa’ scheme to woo super-rich

The government is considering reviving a £5m 'golden visa', allowing wealthy investors fast-track UK citizenship to attract capital and talent - but faces resistance over money-laundering risks and limited growth benefits.

Financial Times

STRATEGY

Volkswagen aims to cut up to 100,000 jobs in next years

Manager Magazin has reported that Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume aims to cut up to 100,000 jobs worldwide and discontinue production at four of the group's German plants, as he seeks to reduce investment by around 15% to just over €130bn ($148bn) over the next five years. "The entire group, including its brands and subsidiaries, must undergo far-reaching change," a Volkswagen spokesperson said.

Reuters

INTERNATIONAL

Ford hires veteran engineers to address quality problems

Ford Motor has brought back so-called “grey beard” engineers to help train younger staff and reprogram AI tools to address quality problems. The hiring of these 350 veterans over the last three years to address what were seemingly intractable quality issues that have cost the company billions has helped Ford become the top mainstream brand in the latest JD Power Initial Quality Survey. Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, said: “Over prior years, we didn’t pay as much attention as we should have to the experience of our most knowledgeable engineers that have been with us through many product cycles.” Ford chief operating officer, Kumar Galhotra, explained: “We had been relying more and more on automated quality systems” and not getting the desired results, adding that the rehired technical specialists “hunt for failure points before a part ever reaches the plant floor.”

Bloomberg

Korea opens up to a 24-hour trading cycle

South Korea launches a 24-hour won-dollar trading market from July 6, with banks trialling the system from Monday. Seoul is removing safeguards that have been in place since the won's collapse during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis,as it pursues an open and fully accessible currency that is a requirement of index provider MSCI's coveted "developed market" designation. "When I first came to the market, it was a 9-to-3 game," observes Namkoong Taehun, who is part of the 37-member FX trading team at Hana Bank in Seoul. "Now, the market has expanded exponentially . . . We are afraid that our workload will increase significantly."

Reuters

Fewer job offers for junior roles as firms adopt AI

Fewer junior roles are being advertised in Switzerland than before 2023 as companies increasingly adopt AI, according to analysis of over 7.3 million job advertisements by Swiss job ‌portal jobs.ch. The share of entry level positions advertised was 32% lower in 2025 than the average between 2019 and 2022, a period defined in the study as the "pre-AI" phase. Meanwhile, AI skills were increasingly sought for roles outside of IT work and offers for senior positions increased 26% in AI-exposed roles in 2025 ‌compared ⁠to the four-year period before 2023, the study found.

Reuters

China says it has right to ⁠target ⁠people outside of its borders ⁠on ethnic unity

China's new law on ethnic unity allows the government to target individuals outside its borders who undermine it. The law, which was passed in ‌March to create a "shared" national identity among the country's 55 ethnic minority groups, goes into effect on July 1, and includes a clause saying that people and groups beyond the borders of the People's Republic of China can be held legally accountable for undermining "ethnic unity and progress or inciting ⁠ethnic ⁠separatism." Vice Justice Minister Hu Weilie said: "This provision is based on China's national conditions, conforms to legal principles, and is consistent with international practice. It is a legitimate, lawful, necessary, and feasible legal provision . . . Countries around the world all have the right to prevent separatist and destructive activities, and to maintain social solidarity and normal order, through domestic legislation."

U.S. News

OTHER

Tutors fear lack of oversight on AI tools

The DfE plans to trial "AI tutoring tools" in schools this year, with the aim of supporting up to 450,000 disadvantaged pupils in years 9 and 10. However, tutors have expressed their concerns about a lack of human oversight, which they say could jeopardise safeguarding. The Tutors’ Association, which represents more than 1,500 individual tutors, is urging the government to consult with them before implementing the programme. Carl Morris, the association’s vice-president, said: “In the current proposed model there is no guarantee that an educator will be in the loop when a child actually sits down with these tools . . . Co-creating a product with teachers is not the same as having an educator involved in the learning itself. With proper oversight there is real potential. Without it, this risks doing more harm than good.”

Schools Week

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