A shock poll showing an emerging lead for Brexit campaigners has hit the value of sterling May 31, 2016 Sterling plummeted yesterday after two surprise polls showed the British public moving closer towards a vote to leave the EU. The pound dropped to below $1.45 against the dollar last night, printing its lowest value since 23 May. The drop followed the publication of a shock poll yesterday afternoon which showed a possible lead for [...]
New polymer banknotes could cost businesses £236m to implement May 31, 2016 New polymer banknotes being introduced by the Bank of England (BoE) in September this year will cost businesses a staggering £236m to implement, research by an independent payments consultancy has found. CMSpi claims that the process of switching to polymer banknotes will leave businesses with a hefty bill, thanks to the costs of upgrading and replacing cash-handling [...]
Investment bank Societe Generale says Osborne will miss his target of a budget surplus by tens of billions of pounds May 31, 2016 George Osborne will not even come close to meeting his budget surplus target and the next move for UK interest rates will be down, according to Societe Generale's gloomy global economic outlook, published today. The investment bank said risks were stacking up across the world and the current "sweet spot" for financial markets could come to [...]
Before the bell: What you need to know before the US market open May 31, 2016 It's the last day of May, people are back at their desks after a long weekend in the UK and the US and markets in New York are pointing up. Here's what you need to know before the US market open at 14:30 London time. Ahead of the open the S&P is up by 0.04 [...]
Germany and UK push EU unemployment down to post-crisis low May 31, 2016 Unemployment across the European Union reached a seven-year low in April, as Germany clocked a record-low jobless rate and the UK registered its highest ever number of people in work. The rate of unemployment for the entire EU came in at 8.7 per cent in April, down from 8.8 per cent a month before – the lowest [...]
Inflation rate still negative in Eurozone as ECB policies having muted effect May 31, 2016 The Eurozone remained locked in deflation in May 2016, according to flash estimates released this morning by Eurostat. Inflation, on the harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) across the 19-member single currency union came in at minus 0.1 per cent, up slightly from minus 0.2 per cent in April. The main index was dragged down by [...]
The 14 Google searches that can predict Britain’s unemployment rate May 31, 2016 The three billion searches we make across the world each day using Google may tell us more than simply the latest celebrities everyone is reading about – the massive data points could in fact help us make economic forecasts. Researchers in Finland have managed to put the information to a very valuable use and say they can predict a [...]
How to make workers more productive without paying them more May 31, 2016 It's a question most managers are eager to know the answer to: How can a company make its employees more productive without paying them more? A new study by economists Michael Kosfeld, Susanne Neckermann, and Xiaolan Yang — published on the economics commentary website VoxEU — observed 413 students doing data-entry to find out. It defined meaningful work as something with a [...]
National living wage hurting UK productivity and low-wage sectors, claims think tank May 31, 2016 The national living wage has had a detrimental impact on the UK’s low-wage sectors, a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has found. The think tank said that businesses are trying to offset the cost of the national living wage by cutting overtime, bonuses and other staff perks. It said that the UK’s low-wage sectors, [...]
Soaring demand for bankers, insurers and accountants, but graduates left out in the cold May 31, 2016 Finance firms across the UK are on a hiring spree, as the number of job vacancies in banking jumped by ten per cent last month. The new analysis of job openings by a group of recruitment firms will provide welcome respite from reports of swingeing job cuts, as the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (Apsco) [...]