China Covid-19 case surge and Brexit disruption worry UK firms most, survey finds February 6, 2023 A surge in Covid-19 cases in China gumming up supply chains threatens to snag the UK economy, a survey out today reveals. Trade flows hobbled by workers in China being too sick to work after contracting the virus or Beijing reimposing lockdowns in response to a rise in cases ranks as the top concern among [...]
Bank of England not poised to slash interest rates until middle of next year despite inflation cooling February 5, 2023 A year of interest rate pain is still in store for households, businesses and mortgagors even after Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and his team of economists have already lifted borrowing costs 10 times in a row. That is according to several top City economists, who do not expect interest rate cuts until early [...]
Week ahead: UK economy to narrowly avoid recession but GDP still expected to shrink February 5, 2023 The UK economy narrowly avoided a recession at the end of last year, new official figures out this week are expected to reveal. City traders think new GDP numbers from the Office for National Statistics on Friday will show the economy contracted 0.3 per cent in December, meaning the UK will have just about skirted [...]
Liz Truss breaks silence to blame media and ‘leftward’ shift for £45bn mini budget failure February 5, 2023 Liz Truss has broken her silence for the first time since being booted out from Number 10 to hit back at critics of her tax cutting, pro-growth economic agenda. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph today, Truss, 47, said she was never given a “realistic chance” to implement sweeping tax cuts designed to unshackle businesses and [...]
Something for the weekend: This week’s five most-read stories on Cityam.com February 3, 2023 A Reddit user called fatmummy, interest rates, vaccines, the ECB and an ignominiouss end to government-funded Tech Nation – here’s what City A.M. readers most wanted to click on this week. One: How a saucepan broke the internet. If lockdown had you baking and prepping then this story would have piqued your interest. Houseproud, or [...]
UK faces ongoing recruitment crisis with more childcare and training needed – British Chambers of Commerce February 3, 2023 The Government is being urged to help firms recruit workers after research showed employers are facing huge problems attracting staff. Four out of five of 5,600 businesses surveyed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said they had problems recruiting workers in recent months. Hospitality firms were most likely to face challenges when recruiting, followed [...]
European Central Bank kicks rates 50 points higher and signals more such hikes to come February 2, 2023 The European Central Bank (ECB) today hiked interest rates 50 basis points and signalled further such increases are coming this year. The monetary authority of the 19 countries using the euro kicked rates higher to tame inflation, which last year hit the highest level since the creation of the common currency back in 1999. Borrowing [...]
Forget the IMF, the Bank of England are the real doomsters in this UK recession merry-go-round February 2, 2023 This week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) became public enemy number one for saying the UK will be the only rich economy to suffer a contraction in 2023. Even Russia, hobbled by sanctions to punish it for its invasion of Ukraine, is poised to squeeze out more growth than Britain this year, the lender of [...]
How To Know Layoffs Are Coming And What To Do About It February 2, 2023 If recent headlines are anything to go by, the future of the tech industry isn’t as secure as we once thought it was. Mass layoffs at Stripe and Meta closed out 2022, and in January alone, Google’s parent company announced it plans to shed 12,000 of its workforce, while Amazon has decided to cut 18,000 [...]
Bank of England hikes interest rates for tenth time in a row amid recession and warns of further action to tame inflation February 2, 2023 The Bank of England today hiked interest rates for the tenth time in a row amid a recession to the highest level since the financial crisis in 2008 and warned more increases may be needed to tame inflation. The nine-strong committee of rate setters that set the base level of borrowing costs in the UK [...]