Unemployment

Annual growth in the weekly pay and bonuses has decreased according to the Office of National Statistics.

Last week a number of banks issued 2010 first-half results. Northern Rock, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Lloyds all released figures showing overall profits in their operations that were good given the current market conditions in their field of activity. All, including Northern Rock, were able to demonstrate the benefits of the "universal model" of banking and senior executives from these companies, both on and off the record, were keen to emphasise their belief in the continuance of thi...

Santander is apparently gearing up to launch an IPO for its Abbey National and Alliance & Leicester UK (including Bradford & Bingley deposits) onto the stock market to raise money for its expansion here.

The Office of National Statistics has just published a batch of figures on the UK's workforce, nearly coinciding with the Friday, 16 July's submission to The Treasury by most government departments of their proposed budget cuts. The Treasury requires drafts based on 25 percent and 40 percent cuts to the 2010-2011 figures and these will form the basis of the autumn Spending Review and November's Budget Address to Parliament by George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Trades Union Congress has said that a double dip recession is looking more likely following "disappointing" unemployment figures yesterday.

The pound was up against both the euro and the dollar today following the publication of unemployment data by the Office for National Statistics.

UK unemployment has fallen by 34,000 today as a record number of people found work in part-time places.

What do the cities of Newcastle upon Tyne, Sheffield and Kingston upon Hull, all have in common? No, or very few, Conservative councillors and each city is headed by a Liberal Democratic Council Leader. Many other northern towns and cities can be added to this list. These same Lib Dem councillors are going to find the funding cuts now being implemented as part of the coalition's Emergency Budget very uncomfortable to action. Many find themselves at odds with the Parliamentary Party, espec...

NIESR, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, has forecast Q2 GDP growth of 0.7 pct in its latest estimates for three months ending June 2010.

A report from the Higher Education Policy Institute has shown men graduating from university are finding it significantly harder to find a job than women graduates, but are likely to be paid more if they do.

The UK Public sector is set to shed over half a million jobs according to the new Independent body – the Office for Budget Responsibility, set up by the new Government.

Shares in Carpetright were down nearly ten per cent on the FTSE 250 and are a recommended sell, despite the group reporting a rise in pre-tax profit of 33 per cent and a doubling of its full year dividend.

Harriet Harman, acting Labour leader responding to Mr Osborne's Emergency Budget Statement said: "This is a Tory Budget that will throw people out of work, hold back economic growth and harm vital public services....It's his first Budget but its the same old Tories....In order to get the deficit down, you need to keep economic growth up and you need to keep unemployment down....Today's Budget is bad for growth and that will make it harder to cut the deficit."

Yesterday's Emergency Budget by Chancellor George Osborne has been welcomed by business as "convincing" and "sensible" while Unions have condemned it as "hammering the poor" and "vintage Thatcher".

Once the full extent of the financial crisis in Greece became apparent, the governments of the EU, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, set about putting together a rescue package which eventually also took account of money market pressures against Portugal and Spain. Owing to several delays in getting this massive project under way, the money markets rapidly lost confidence in any determined action from the EU and Eurozone countries and had started to concentrate, not simply ...

Chancellor George Osborne looks likely to raise Capital Gains Tax when he announces his Emergency Budget tomorrow, despite a campaign by Conservative backbenchers to drop the idea.

The Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has denied rumours that his nation is on the verge of asking the IMF and the EU for a bailout, despite a visit by the head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

UK Unemployment has increased 0.1 pct with the jobless rate at 7.9 pct for the three months to April 2010.

In 1971, the Bretton Woods Gold-Dollar exchange rate system broke down, bringing in an era of floating exchange rates with all their uncertainty. Governments, especially the USA's and UK's may have been relieved of defending a particular parity by having to take deflationary action but this simply passed the burden on to trade and industry. As rates of exchange might vary at any time, both exporters and importers feared exchange rate losses, so increasing risk and uncertainty in the busi...

New Look, the privately owned clothing retailer, has said that it is confident but cautious on the year ahead after posting a rise in profit of nearly 18 per cent for the full year ended 27 March 2010.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts? It has been touch and go this past month or so as to whether or not a wooden horse would make a suitable coffin for the euro. The EU itself has been shaken at its very core by a rift between President Sarkozy of France and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel when, was been reported, the French President banged his fist on the table and threatened his country would pull out of the euro if Germany did not give its full backing to a rescue/bailout package for Gre...

David Cameron received a timely reminder on his first full day as Prime Minister that solving the economic problems of the nation should be of foremost concern to his new government.