Accessibility helpSkip to navigationSkip to contentSkip to footer
  • Sign In
  • Subscribe
Open side navigation menuOpen search bar
Financial Times
SubscribeSign In
  • Home
  • World
    Sections
    • World Home
    • Middle East war
    • Global Economy
    • UK
    • US
    • China
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Emerging Markets
    • Europe
    • War in Ukraine
    • Americas
    • Middle East & North Africa
    Most Read
    • China stops buying liquefied gas from US
    • Trump ratchets up pressure on Fed chair Powell to cut rates
    • Harvard balks at Trump administration’s demand for foreign students’ data
    • Yuval Noah Harari: Trump’s world of rival fortresses
    • Non-doms quit London private members’ clubs to avoid UK tax links
  • UK
    Sections
    • UK Home
    • UK Economy
    • UK Politics
    • UK Companies
    • Personal Finance
    Most Read
    • Non-doms quit London private members’ clubs to avoid UK tax links
    • The problem with wealth taxes
    • Number of UK consumers streaming sports illegally has gone ‘through the roof’, police say
    • Asda fires opening salvo as UK supermarket price war looms
    • UK bans EVs from some military bases over Chinese spy fears
  • Companies
    Sections
    • Companies Home
    • Energy
    • Financials
    • Health
    • Industrials
    • Media
    • Professional Services
    • Retail & Consumer
    • Tech Sector
    • Telecoms
    • Transport
    Most Read
    • China stops buying liquefied gas from US
    • Is there life after banking?
    • Trading in two stocks surged before Trump family appointments announced
    • Number of UK consumers streaming sports illegally has gone ‘through the roof’, police say
    • Astronomers claim strongest evidence yet of extraterrestrial life
  • Tech
    Sections
    • Tech Home
    • Artificial intelligence
    • Semiconductors
    • Cyber Security
    • Social Media
    Most Read
    • Nvidia chief Jensen Huang flies to Beijing for talks
    • OpenAI’s mind-boggling growth masks challenges
    • UK bans EVs from some military bases over Chinese spy fears
    • Google ‘wilfully’ monopolised online advertising market, US judge rules
    • Tech industry fears Trump’s trade war will hamper US AI ‘dominance’
  • Markets
    Sections
    • Markets Home
    • Alphaville
    • Markets Data
    • Crypto
    • Capital Markets
    • Commodities
    • Currencies
    • Equities
    • Monetary Policy Radar
    • Wealth Management
    • Moral Money
    • ETF Hub
    • Fund Management
    • Trading
    Most Read
    • China stops buying liquefied gas from US
    • Trading in two stocks surged before Trump family appointments announced
    • Is the world losing faith in the almighty US dollar?
    • Few US CEOs bought the dip as tariffs rattled markets
    • US rare earth champion faces trade war test after tariffs halt China sales
  • Climate
  • Opinion
    Sections
    • Opinion Home
    • Columnists
    • The FT View
    • The Big Read
    • Lex
    • Obituaries
    • Letters
    Most Read
    • Yuval Noah Harari: Trump’s world of rival fortresses
    • Americans, it’s time to move to Europe
    • Tariffs ignore the reality of global tech supply chains
    • OpenAI’s mind-boggling growth masks challenges
    • Donald Trump’s gift to globalisation
  • Lex
  • Work & Careers
    Sections
    • Work & Careers Home
    • Business School Rankings
    • Business Education
    • Europe's Start-Up Hubs
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Recruitment
    • Business Books
    • Business Travel
    • Working It
    Most Read
    • Few US CEOs bought the dip as tariffs rattled markets
    • Three ideas to energise British tech
    • A food tour of the Jersey Shore with Hailee Catalano, the internet’s favourite cooking teacher
    • Bonuses surge for top traders at EU investment firms after cap is lifted
    • Are your team ‘playing you’?
  • Life & Arts
    Sections
    • Life & Arts Home
    • Arts
    • Books
    • Food & Drink
    • FT Magazine
    • House & Home
    • Style
    • Puzzles
    • Travel
    • FT Globetrotter
    Most Read
    • Is there life after banking?
    • Americans, it’s time to move to Europe
    • Is there such a thing as a British video game?
    • ‘A reliable, old-school Italian’ — Jay Rayner reviews Da Mario, Kensington
    • The World of the Cold War — timely reading in an age of US, Russia and China tensions
  • HTSI
MenuSearch
  • Home
  • World
  • UK
  • Companies
  • Tech
  • Markets
  • Climate
  • Opinion
  • Lex
  • Work & Careers
  • Life & Arts
  • HTSI
Financial Times
SubscribeSign In

Sarah O'Connor

Employment columnist

Sarah O'Connor is a columnist, reporter and associate editor at the Financial Times. She writes a weekly column focused on the world of work, as well as longer reported articles.

She joined the FT in 2007 and has covered the US economy from Washington DC, the UK economy from London and the financial crisis from Iceland.

Email Sarah O'Connor @sarahoconnor_  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)
  • Tuesday, 15 April, 2025
    Technology
    What can workers do if they’re fired by AI?

    Automated decisions are a source of under-appreciated tension in the UK government’s approach to low-paid employees

    A car with an Uber logo
  • Tuesday, 8 April, 2025
    Employment
    The US may be reversing course on child labour

    Acute strain on the jobs market has encouraged some states to consider reducing restrictions on employing minors

    children work as miners in  Pennsylvania
  • Tuesday, 25 March, 2025
    Artificial intelligence
    A white-collar world without juniors?

    Professional business models may need to change if novices lose the opportunities to learn and progress when AI takes over their work

    Surgeons carry out a surgery with a da Vinci Xi robotic surgical system
  • Sunday, 23 March, 2025
    Work & Careers
    Side hustles, Zoom waves and the Great Casualisation: how Covid shaped new ways to work

    Five years after lockdown, what are the lasting effects and the forgotten pandemic trends?

    Illustration of people representing work from home, video calls, leadership and travel
  • Tuesday, 18 March, 2025
    Consumer trends
    Why do people keep buying printers they hate?

    A puzzling tale of capitalism and consumer psychology at a time of technological change

    A woman smashes a printer in a Rage Room
  • Tuesday, 11 March, 2025
    Employment
    What bankers and care home workers have in common

    Volatile pay is surprisingly prevalent in the British economy

    A woman and a man stand together with their arms crossed
  • Tuesday, 4 March, 2025
    Artificial intelligence
    Students must learn to be more than mindless ‘machine-minders’

    Generative AI is a tempting short-cut that can prevent those at university from gaining foundational skills

    Exams in progress
  • Tuesday, 25 February, 2025
    UK employment
    Whatever happened to the great truck driver shortage?

    The underlying problems behind the crisis have not yet been resolved

    A driver after passing his HGV driving test at the National Driving Centre in Croydon in 2021
  • Tuesday, 4 February, 2025
    Social affairs
    What to do when the computer says no

    Simply adding a human review process to an algorithmic decision doesn’t make tricky trade-offs disappear

    App store with Gmail e-mail mobile app
  • Tuesday, 28 January, 2025
    Driverless vehicles
    Can self-driving cars save us from ourselves?

    Manufacturers promising greater safety have a problem: human drivers set the bar higher than you might think

    A Waymo self-driving Jaguar taxi stopped at a red light near Venice Beach in Los Angeles
  • Tuesday, 21 January, 2025
    Employment
    Anatomy of a jobs promise

    Eye-catching boosterism about employment from new projects does not always stand up to scrutiny

    A rendering of a proposed new data centre on land near Cambois, Northumberland
  • Tuesday, 14 January, 2025
    Ageing Populations
    Age is more than a number when it comes to policy

    Why how long people have been alive is not a good yardstick for judging who is ‘old’

    A woman swims in a lake
  • Tuesday, 7 January, 2025
    Employment
    How much sick pay is too much sick pay?

    The contrasting cases of Germany and the UK are revealing about policy trade-offs

    A sick pay now placard at a zero hour contracts protest.
  • Thursday, 26 December, 2024
    Technology
    Are we becoming a post-literate society?

    Technology has changed the way many of us consume information, from complex pieces of writing to short video clips

    Illustration of a torso of a robot connected to the torso of a woman so they make a mirror image
  • Tuesday, 17 December, 2024
    UK employment
    The gig economy is coming to a shop near you

    Apps that let retailers hire freelance staff by the shift are increasing in popularity

    Young ones promotional picture of a  younger person looking at her mobile phone while standing next to a black labradoodle
  • Tuesday, 10 December, 2024
    Global Economy
    Economists need to get their story straight on immigration

    Focusing on the impact on the wages or employment levels of native workers is too narrow

    Farm workers in overalls and hairnets sort through freshly cut asparagus
  • Tuesday, 3 December, 2024
    Technology
    We’re all suffering from qualitynesia now

    Borne along on the tide of technology, it is far too easy to forget that some things really were better quality in the past

    A CD and CD player and over-ear headphones
  • Tuesday, 26 November, 2024
    Employment
    Why the public doesn’t buy the idea of a ‘green jobs’ bonanza

    People understand that transitions are hard — politicians need to as well

    The NorthVolt AB Labs research and development center in Vasteras, Sweden
  • Tuesday, 19 November, 2024
    UK employment
    Let’s get real about what Labour reforms mean for employers

    Big policy interventions are always a leap in the dark

    Two workers stand shoulder to shoulder on a blue and purple background
  • Tuesday, 12 November, 2024
    Driverless vehicles
    The very human problem with not-quite-self-driving cars

    The better an automated system performs, the more complacent — and dangerous — we become

    A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar taxi drives along a street on March 14, 2024 in Los Angeles, California.
  • Thursday, 20 June, 2024
    Zero-hours contracts
    Zero-hours contracts — an obituary

    These arrangements remain a blight on Britain’s labour market

    A bartender pulls a pint
  • Monday, 9 October, 2023
    FT News Briefing podcast11 min listen
    Israel responds to historic Hamas attack

    The death toll from Hamas’s unprecedented multi-front assault on Israel passed 600 on Sunday

  • Tuesday, 26 September, 2023
    Employment
    Net zero was never going to be an easy win for workers

    The green transition will be hard and involve trade-offs policymakers would rather not talk about

    James Ferguson illustration of miners’ helmets left rusting in a field, with wind turbines set against a blue sky behind them
  • Tuesday, 19 September, 2023
    UK employment
    Why don’t people leave bad jobs?

    Giving workers a bit more security might make the labour market more flexible, not less

    A man and a woman ponder as they look at a door marked ‘exit’
  • Tuesday, 12 September, 2023
    Employment
    Experiments are key for more grown-up industrial relations

    In the UK, the Labour party’s commitment to sectoral collective bargaining could bring positive changes

    Montage image showing two workers, one dressed in high-viz with a helmet and clipboard. The other is in hospital scrubs with a stethoscope
Previous page You are on page 1 Next page

Useful links

Support

View Site TipsHelp CentreContact UsAbout UsAccessibilitymyFT TourCareersSuppliers

Legal & Privacy

Terms & ConditionsPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyManage CookiesCopyrightSlavery Statement & Policies

Services

Share News Tips SecurelyIndividual SubscriptionsProfessional SubscriptionsRepublishingExecutive Job SearchAdvertise with the FTFollow the FT on XFT ChannelsFT Schools

Tools

PortfolioFT AppFT Digital EditionFT EditAlerts HubBusiness School RankingsSubscription ManagerNews feedNewslettersCurrency Converter

Community & Events

FT Live EventsFT ForumsFT Leaders Academy

More from the FT Group

Markets data delayed by at least 15 minutes. © THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2025. FT and ‘Financial Times’ are trademarks of The Financial Times Ltd.
The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice.
Edition:UK
International
Subscribe for full access

Top sections

  • Home
  • World
    • Middle East war
    • Global Economy
    • UK
    • US
    • China
    • Africa
    • Asia Pacific
    • Emerging Markets
    • Europe
    • War in Ukraine
    • Americas
    • Middle East & North Africa
  • UK
    • UK Economy
    • UK Politics
    • UK Companies
    • Personal Finance
  • Companies
    • Energy
    • Financials
    • Health
    • Industrials
    • Media
    • Professional Services
    • Retail & Consumer
    • Tech Sector
    • Telecoms
    • Transport
  • Tech
    • Artificial intelligence
    • Semiconductors
    • Cyber Security
    • Social Media
  • Markets
    • Alphaville
    • Markets Data
    • Crypto
    • Capital Markets
    • Commodities
    • Currencies
    • Equities
    • Monetary Policy Radar
    • Wealth Management
    • Moral Money
    • ETF Hub
    • Fund Management
    • Trading
  • Climate
  • Opinion
    • Columnists
    • The FT View
    • The Big Read
    • Lex
    • Obituaries
    • Letters
  • Lex
  • Work & Careers
    • Business School Rankings
    • Business Education
    • Europe's Start-Up Hubs
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Recruitment
    • Business Books
    • Business Travel
    • Working It
  • Life & Arts
    • Arts
    • Books
    • Food & Drink
    • FT Magazine
    • House & Home
    • Style
    • Puzzles
    • Travel
    • FT Globetrotter
  • Personal Finance
    • Property & Mortgages
    • Investments
    • Pensions
    • Tax
    • Banking & Savings
    • Advice & Comment
  • HTSI
  • Special Reports

FT recommends

  • Alphaville
  • FT Edit
  • Lunch with the FT
  • FT Globetrotter
  • #techAsia
  • Moral Money
  • Visual and data journalism
  • Newsletters
  • Video
  • Podcasts
  • News feed
  • FT Schools
  • FT Live Events
  • FT Forums
  • FT Leaders Academy
  • myFT
  • Portfolio
  • FT Digital Edition
  • Crossword
  • Our Apps
  • Help Centre
  • Subscribe
  • Sign In