London mayoral election: Freezing fares or cutting council tax? How Zac and Sadiq’s giveaways stack up May 4, 2016 Elections are rarely free from giveaways. Labour Mayoral hopeful Sadiq Khan’s flagship policy is to freeze Transport for London’s fares for four years. His main contender, Conservative candidate Zac Goldsmith, has made clear he would freeze the council tax collected by the Mayor. This is one of the few big policy differences between the two [...]
EU referendum: Brexit would mean higher inflation and more quantitative easing May 4, 2016 The Bank of England may have to extend its bond-buying quantitative easing programme if the UK votes to leave the European Union, an asset management firm has said today. Hermes Investment Management warned that Brexit would cause the pound to fall – potentially to around $1.20 – and growth would be hit, putting the Bank of England [...]
Do these five charts explain the productivity puzzle? May 4, 2016 What do the UK’s jobs boom, the rise of self-employment, the plethora of start-ups, short-term investors, meetings, access to finance, employee wellbeing, the skills shortages, too much government and not enough government have in common? They’ve all been blamed for the UK’s productivity crisis. “Productivity” – a slightly woolly measure which basically divides total economic output by [...]
Construction industry grows at its slowest pace in three years May 4, 2016 The makers and manufacturers are marching a little slower than they once were – and a great deal slower than chancellor George Osborne would like. Fresh purchasing managers' index (PMI) figures for the construction sector out this morning showed that the building industry expanded at its slowest pace since June 2013 last month. That comes off [...]
Brexit would spell the end to UK manufacturing May 4, 2016 Britain's already embattled manufacturing sector would be left fighting for its long-term survival if Britain votes to leave the European Union. Asked about its survival prospects outside of the EU, professor Marco Taisch, chairman of the World Manufacturing Forum, told City A.M: "It's a matter of time. It can survive for five to seven years, but long-term it can't." [...]
Even the national living wage can’t stop shops from cutting prices May 4, 2016 Prices on the high-street fell in April, despite the introduction of the living wage, according to the latest shop price index from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), published today. Retailers cut prices by 1.7 per cent over the past year — the same rate of discounting as a month earlier and the 36th consecutive period of falling [...]
World Bank warns area covering two-thirds of world population at risk of growth slowdown May 3, 2016 Water shortages could knock as much as six per cent off the size of the world’s largest economies over the next three decades, the World Bank has said in a new report published today. An area that includes more than four billion people, covering China, India, the middle east and sub-Saharan Africa, will suffer shrinking [...]
Employers rely on this many workers from elsewhere in the EU May 3, 2016 UK employers rely on a workforce made up of over one million EU workers, a study out today has found. According to the research by Adecco and the Social Market Foundation, there are 1.6m employees in the UK who hail from somewhere else in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland, which equates to around [...]
European Commission trims growth forecasts and warns on EU referendum May 3, 2016 Growth and inflation will remain weak for the rest of the year, the European Commission has said as it cut its outlook for the continent in its quarterly economic forecast, released today, and warned Brexit could knock growth even further The Eurozone area will grow by 1.6 per cent this year – down from a [...]
Bleak outlook for UK manufacturing industry – is Brexit to blame? May 3, 2016 Confidence in the manufacturing industry plummeted in April, according to the latest purchasing managers' index (PMI) data out this morning, raising fears about a sustained slowdown in the sector – and the wider economy. On a scale where scores below 50 mark contraction, the Markit/Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) survey came in at 49.2 – [...]