According to a new research report by Ovum, the UK’s public sector software and IT services market is set for a slowdown.  While the sector has been growing strong recently, suppliers should be ready for reduction in growth as budget issues and spending reviews have their effect.  Click here for the full story.

Sales will be for more mid-sized projects in application development and maintenance, systems integration, and consulting.  The large contracts that companies have experienced recently will most likely be less frequent, and companies will have to learn to adapt.

Any real downturn in the U.S. economy that may savage Asian export markets might be contained by Asian governmental spending.  Many of the emerging economies in Asian faced significant challenges during past U.S. economic cycles, but the story should be different this time - Click here for the full story.

According to recent research, most Asian governments are sitting on highly improved balance sheets.  The ability of these countries to divert money into major infrastructure projects has been considerably simplified as a result of several years of resilient growth.  Governments pumping money directly into local economies should offset most headwinds coming out of a U.S. economic pullback.  Much of Asia sees a lot of rain, but it seems at least a few governments have planned ahead for the next rainy day.  

According to UBS Wealth Management’s recent report headed by Roger Franklin, Britain’s public sector needs to get involved earlier in a start-up company’s development. The public sector support in the UK is strong, but it needs to come earlier to help more fledgling companies survive.

This earlier investment encourages more entrepreneurs to take that first step to building a new company. One important statistic is that Israel, which has a similar venture capital structure as the United States has almost four times the venture capital investment as most of the major countries in Europe. Frankly, all countries should do more in the area of getting small companies started. The goal for all nations should be to push innovation since it usually contributes to a creation of new jobs going forward.

Under a NSW Government plan in Australia, public servants have to call a private nurse when calling in sick.  The first group of workers affected by this are bus drivers.  This is a negotiated point in recent discussions to deliver a 4 percent wage increase to public workers.  Read the entire article here.

The issue is that public servants historically take more sick days than private workers.  In a 2 week period measured in 2003, 9.5 percent of public workers took a sick day while only 6.1 percent of private workers did.  The NSW believes that reducing the sick leave public workers take by 1 day would save taxpayers $45 million.

Along with the alert to the employer that the employee is ill, the nurse gives out health advice to the employee.  It is believed that the same people are consistently taking the time off.

Is this something for all future organizations private and public?

Recent statistics highlight that the issue of immigration may remain near the top of the list for a while.  Arkansas’ bill for immigrants, both legal and illegal, comes to $170 million annually.  Most of the money went to education - Click here for the full story. 

Another study showed that immigrants helped contribute $3 billion to the state’s economy - including $1.4 billion in production for the state’s manufacturers and other companies.  These costs - and benefits - are big numbers and provide arguments for both sides of the debate in Arkansas.   Big numbers - and Arkansas is one of the smaller of the 50 states. 

That’s the sentiment from UK business leaders in a recent research survey.  The results pointed the finger at the Labour party for failing to bring improvements in UK education.  Read the Full article here.

Although the survey showed satisfaction in some areas, the majority felt that despite the significant funding of education across all levels, the quality of education had not increased.  A feeling was that a move toward soft “A-levels” would also not help the economy.

Government spending on research always goes up, right?  Wrong.  Recent figures shows research spending by the National Cancer Institute will continue to go down - Click here for the details.

The budget crunch from a war and other fiscal programs shows up in many places.  The NCI is the government’s main cancer research resource.  You can debate the pros and cons of government direction, but as the U.S. government found during Vietnam, it can’t be money for both guns and butter.  It’s usually a choice of one or the other.  Spending on research can - and does - go down.