77% of British people want it to be illegal to discriminate against obese people in the workplace, provided they can carry out their job, according to new research published by law firm Vizards Wyeth. It is estimated there are over 9m obese adults in the UK. The research also shows that suspicions run high over bosses' intentions when they ask for a photograph with job applications. 40% believe that employers do this to give preference to better looking people, with a further 25% believing that it is to block applications from certain races. Overall, 71% of people feel the request is to enable some form of discrimination.

February's Bank of Scotland Labour Market Report points to a firm labour market in Scotland, with demand for staff robust and candidate availability tight. The report's labour market barometer registered 60.3 in February, up marginally from 60.1 in the previous month.

Research by SkillsMarket reveals that the skills shortage is the top issue for IT recruitment companies this year. About 78% of MDs and directors of the UK's leading recruitment companies expected the demand for IT staff to increase over the next 12 months.

Departments in Whitehall have run up a bill of £200m over the past four years on temps — at a time when thousands of civil servants are in line to be sacked, according to the Sunday Telegraph. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport spent £1.2m on temps in 2005-06, compared with £452,000 in 2003-04. And in the past two years, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate — part of the Home Office — has spent nearly £60m on agency staff.