Barometer

4 February 2012

Bonus culture

Some have called for an end to a ‘bonus culture’ in banks and big firms. But bonus culture has been around a long time…
— Around the year ad 70, Roman legionnaires received bonuses of 25 denarii to supplement their salaries of 225 denarii.
— Bonuses were recorded by 14th-century Florentine banks, with one employee of the Peruzzi Company receiving 40 lire to supplement a salary of five times that sum.
— In 1965 India passed the Payment of Bonus Act, which entitled employees to a bonus of 8.33 per cent of their salary, and at least 100 rupees, providing they worked for more than 30 days in a year.

Who’s unbalanced?

Nicolas Sarkozy says ‘Britain has no industry any more’. How balanced is our economy compared with those of other rich nations?

% contributions to Gross Value Added, 2010

Manufacturing		Services
11	France	80
21	Germany	71
17	Italy	73
18	Japan	73
12	UK	77
13	US	79

Source: US Census Bureau

Course correction

The number of university applications has fallen by 7.4 per cent, year on year, after the increase in tuition fees.
Most affected subjects
Non-European languages -22%
Technologies -18%
Sciences with social sciences/arts -18%

Least affected subjects
Subjects allied to medicine +2.1%
Physical sciences -0.6%
Engineering -1.3%
Veterinary science -2.4%
Maths and computer science -2.8%

Blood on the tracks

Network Rail pleaded guilty to safety breaches over the deaths of two girls at a level crossing in Essex in 2005, three days after another girl was killed on the same stretch of line. How did people come to grief on the railways in 2010/11?

Suicide 208
Trespass 27
Slipping/running into train at station 7
Killed at level crossing 4
Rail workers killed on line 1
Assault 1
Train accidents 0
Source: Office of the Rail Regulator

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