This is the 53rd of a series of bulletins produced by ISE to update members on key data and policy related to Covid-19. This bulletin covers the period 22nd April – 5th May 2021.

You can access all of the Covid-19 bulletins on ISE insights.

Latest Covid-19 data

Data taken from Wikipedia and from the government’s Covid-19 dashboard.

The UK has now had over 4.4 million identified Covid-19 cases and 151,000 deaths (with Covid on the death certificate).

The number of new cases and the number of deaths are now approaching the level that they were during summer 2020. The number of cases and deaths are continuing to fall most weeks.

Covid news

Data from the government’s Covid-19 dashboard.

• Lockdown is coming to an end. How much freedom will we have?
• 7 in 10 adults in the UK has Covid antibodies. But, how near is it to herd immunity?
• Devi Sridhar argues that Britain won’t be safe from Covid until people everywhere have been vaccinated.

Education

• Government catch up schemes are only having an impact on a tiny minority of students.
• Schools are now deep in the process of examining GCSE and A level students. Ofqual has revealed the quality assurance approach that it plans to use with this.
• New survey suggests that the vaccine roll out is making the UK more attractive to international students.
• The Career Development Institute has launched its new CDI framework to support careers education across the lifecourse.

The economy

• Leading employers argue that the government needs to develop a national prosperity plan.
• ONS analysis suggests that employers who employer higher paid staff and higher educated staff have been more resilient during the pandemic.

The labour market

• The number of new jobs advertised has continued to grow according to new analysis by Indeed. With some businesses in hospitality now facing a staffing crisis.
• The pandemic has had a greater impact on women’s employment than on men’s employment.
• Kickstart has been criticised for only creating 490 jobs in the North East.
• Graduate labour market update from Charlie Ball.

Changing patterns of work

• The government’s flexible working taskforce recommends that employers maintain many of the working arrangements that have emerged during the pandemic. Although research from CIPD suggests that the pandemic has actually reduced some forms of flexible working. But new research suggests that homeworking does not work as well for everyone.

Student recruitment and development

• Graduate and school leaver appointments are back on the rise according to ISE research.
• Handshake have been exploring the challenges and potential downfall in using online attraction approaches.
• The impact of the pandemic on students on work experience has led many organisations to switch to virtual internships. Sandra Rivera sets out some of the lessons that can be learnt from Intel’s experience.
• How has Covid impacted on the way that employers deliver development programmes?