# Political and Economic Influences

## Overview

Politics is always there! And you can't get away from economics! Many political decisions influence where business goes - such as health and safety legislation, for example, or emigration and immigration decisions, or taxation. The economy will also strongly affect how business operates and whether or not it will be successful.

Perhaps you might like to read more about political and economic influences?

### Politics

Political decisions strongly affect the work environment. Legislation such as the Employment Relations Act 2000 and the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 cause changes to occur. New legislation is seldom aimed at preserving the status quo!

Think about the effects that health and safety legislation have had on business -new regulations, health and safety officers, and all that stuff which wasn't in law in earlier years.

And then there is privacy legislation. Once, it was common to print examination results in the newspapers (complete with names and grades), often before the candidates themselves were informed. That wouldn't happen now.

### Economics

Many economic decisions and influences affect businesses. During an economic downturn, some businesses have problems while others may even do better. A shop selling party decorations might struggle when people have less money, but food shops probably wouldn't have too many difficulties, as people still need to eat.

What about globalisation? We are part of a global economy. Organisations may operate in global financial, capital, and labour markets. This results in looser structures and more product and activity flexibility. Globalisation can have a major influence on what we do and how we do it.

Today, for example, we find that we need fewer people for certain kinds of work such as building cars. But we need more people doing new sorts of work, such as looking after overseas visitors in the travel and tourism industry.

[back to top]