Virgin Atlantic is set to reduce its number of flights this winter which will put 600 jobs at risk. The airline, founded by Sir Richard Branson, announced that it was not operating its Heathrow-Chicago daily service for the winter 2009/10 season and is suspending one of its two daily services between Heathrow and Hong Kong. [...]
There is bad news today with regard to UK jobs after the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) warned that 334,000 jobs will be axed across the business services sector by 2011. The study suggests that the credit crunch and recession will result in more than half of the jobs that were created in [...]
Thousands of UK jobs are at risk today after van maker, LDV, has been forced into administration after a deal with Weststar (the Malaysian vehicle importer and contract manufacturer) collapsed. LDV has been struggling of late and sought financial assistance from the Government earlier this year after it said it was “literally running out of [...]
Clinton Cards has put its Birthdays greetings card chain into administration after it said it could not provide funding to the loss-making chain anymore. The announcement puts 2,200 jobs at risk. Peter Saville of Zolfo Cooper, who has been appointed administrator, said: “Despite today’s announcement, I would like to reassure customers that it is business [...]
The Commerce Department revealed that US retail sales fell 0.4% in April and follows a fall of 1.3% in March. April’s figure was worse than analysts had expected and show no evidence of an actual recovery, according to Paul Dales, US economist at Capital Economics. Consumer spending makes up for nearly 70% US GDP and [...]
Figures released by ADP Employer Services have revealed that fewer jobs were lost in the private sector in April in the US. The news was welcomed on the stock markets with the Dow Jones industrial average up by 76.14 points to 8,486.79 in early trading. Furthermore, the euro rose against the dollar to $1.3355, while [...]
Struggling van maker LDV, owned by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, has been thrown a lifeline by the UK Government after the company has been provided with a £5 million bridging loan, in order to avoid administration and save hundreds of jobs. The bridging loan paves the way for Malaysian vehicle importer and contract manufacturer, Weststar, [...]
The largest European recruitment company, Hays, has announced 250 job cuts in the UK, stating that increased pricing pressure has resulted in a cut back in the number of temporary jobs due to the recession. Fees will also continue to fall as wages fall and net fees from temp-workers have fallen for the first time [...]
According to a report in the Daily Mail, the world’s largest carmaker General Motors (GM) is preparing for bankruptcy. While the company is hoping to win concessions from its creditors, the threat of going bust puts 5,000 jobs at risk at Vauxhall in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire and Luton as well as 60,000 supply jobs. GM [...]
Robert Dyas looks set to avoid administration with more than 1,200 jobs set to be saved, after the hardware store chain and its lending banks, including the Lloyds Banking Group, reached a last minute deal. The company’s management team, led by Steven Round, is in the process of completing a management buy-out of the business [...]
In order to prevent Scotland’s Dunfermline Building Society from collapse, the UK government will pay Nationwide Building Society £1.6 billion in order to cover the liabilities they have taken on. However, there has been mixed opinions over the way in which the process has been handled. As part of the deal, the 140-year old Building [...]
According to the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply’s (CIPS) index, UK manufacturing has weakened for a tenth consecutive month with the index at a low of 34.7. The CIPS is estimating that approximately 30,000 factory jobs in the UK are being lost every month as firms slash costs amid a slump in demand. Roy [...]
Economists at Strathclyde University believe Scotland could be hit hard by the recession with 159,000 jobs expected to go over the 2008 to 2011 period. The alarming survey, conducted by the Fraser of Allander Institute, said the downturn could be worse than the recession in the 1980s and is predicting that Scottish net output could [...]
Figures from the CBI revealed a further decline in retail sales this month albeit the rate of the decline has slowed. According to the CBI’s distributive trades survey, 27% of retailers reported that sales in the first half of the month were higher than a year ago. This is compared with the 52% of retailers [...]
A newly formed body is urging the Government to build more than 100,000 affordable homes over the next two years. The 2020 Group, which is chaired by former Government housing adviser, Kate Barker, is arguing that the economy could be kick-started by a building programme on this scale, which would cost in the region of [...]
Banking and insurance group, ING, is set to shed 7,000 positions from its workforce as it looks to save €1 billion (£949 million), as a result of challenging economic conditions. The job losses represent 5.4% of its 130,000 workforce but the Dutch firm has not given details yet as to where the jobs will be [...]
A study by the Local Government Association (LGA) has found that the south of England will be the worst hit during the recession. In its report, ‘From Recession To Recovery: The Local Dimension’, the LGA said cities in the north will weather the storm better because decades of cost-cutting and redundancies have made businesses there [...]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has today announced an 8% fall in operating profits and stated that the economic slowdown will affect its financial results for the final quarter of the year. Furthermore, the bank has announced further write-downs on credit assets totalling £206 million, on top of the £5.9 billion it reported in the [...]
Figures from the Labor Department show that US employers axed 159,000 jobs last month, this represents the highest since March 2003. The figure is double the fall from the previous month and marks the ninth consecutive month that the economy has lost jobs. Furthermore, the Labor Department said that the unemployment rate is steady at [...]
Japan’s largest brokerage house, Nomura Holdings, is to buy some of Lehman Brothers’ European operations. Nomura is to acquire Lehman’s investment banking and equities unit in Europe and said it will pay a ‘nominal’ amount for the operations. The deal, which subject to regulatory approval, comes just 24 hours after Nomura announced it was to [...]
Phone fraudsters stealing bank card pins
Fraudsters using a phone scam to trick bank card holders into revealing their pin numbers stole £750,000 in the first four months of this year. This is the same amount stolen through this scam in the whole of last year. The fraudster telephones a bank customer, often someone elderly or vulnerable, telling them that their [...]
FSA rules out ban on interest-only mortgages
Speculation that the Financial Services Authority would ban interest-only mortgages as part of its Mortgage Market Review has proved to be unfounded. However, lenders will be required to monitor the performance of the investment product taken out by the customer to repay the mortgage at the end of its term. Investments are performing poorly because [...]
Bank of England may end free in-credit banking
A director of the Bank of England has warned that official intervention could be considered to end the ‘dangerous myth of free in-credit banking’. Andrew Bailey has already spoken out against free banking in relation to the mis-selling of financial products. In a speech made available to media, he reiterated his concern, saying that it [...]
Bank of England votes against more economic stimulus
The Bank of England voted against a further round of quantitative easing, at its latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. Just one member, David Miles, voted for further asset purchase to encourage growth in the UK economy, while the other eight members voted to keep the Bank’s quantitative easing programme steady at £325bn. The minutes [...]
Catalogue debt growing says helpline
Calls from people concerned about their debts with mail order catalogues accounted for more than 12 per cent of all calls received by National Debtline last year, compared with just 8 per cent in 2007. More people were concerned about catalogue debt than about payday loans, mortgage or rent, according to the Money Advice Trust [...]
Homeserve faces mis-selling investigation
HomeServe, which provides emergency insurance cover and domestic repairs to households in the UK, is to be investigated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Issues over the possible mis-selling of household emergency policies were uncovered last October during an internal review at the Walsall-based company. Homeserve’s call centre staff were found to be selling ‘Complete [...]
OFT warns Wonga over debt collection methods
Payday loan company Wonga used aggressive and misleading methods to collect debts from customers, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has found. Wonga sent letter and emails to certain customers suggesting they had committed fraud and threatening to report them to the police if they did not act in the way Wonga suggested. The company [...]
NS&I re-launches investment account
National Savings & Investments (NS&I) has re-launched its Investment Account at a higher interest rate than it previously offered. The account now offers 0.75 per cent before tax, compared with between 0.2 and 0.3 per cent previously, depending on the account balance. Deposits and withdrawals on the account can no longer be made at Post [...]
Rightmove reports property downsizing trend
Two in five property owners planning to sell in the next year are planning to ‘trade down’, compared with one in four who plan to ‘trade up’. A survey by property website Rightmove found that moving to a smaller home is the main reason for moving in nine out of the ten regions in the [...]
More people failing to save for retirement
The proportion of people with no pension savings has grown from 20 per cent to 22 per cent over the past year, according to Scottish Widows’ latest survey. The pension provider surveyed 5,200 adults in the UK, aged 30 or over, and earning at least £10,000 a year, for its annual review of pensions. Ian [...]
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