British sales rep a LinkedIn sensation after leaving £100k job to become postman August 18, 2021 A Briton who went viral on LinkedIn after swapping a high-paying career to become a postman has said “Covid has made people value the simple things in life”. Phil Goddard, 56, from Orwell in Cambridgeshire, left behind decades in sales and account management after going through furlough and redundancy in 2020. In September last year [...]
City Moves: Who’s switching jobs in the Square Mile this week? August 18, 2021 City A.M.’s Millie Turner provides a roundup of the most important hires and job moves across the City, every Wednesday afternoon. Email citymoves@cityam.com to be featured. London First completes leadership shuffle Business lobby organisation London First has strengthened its leadership team this week as it channels its focus on the capital’s return to growth, emerging from the pandemic. Former director of corporate [...]
SoftBank ramps up exits to fund prolific Vision Fund dealmaking August 18, 2021 The Japanese investment giant sold around $14bn worth of listed stocks last quarter, marking a change in its exit-hesitant strategy in order to fund its Vision Fund’s accelerating investments in tech startups. SoftBank sold an estimated $14bn worth of listed stocks in the last quarter – almost triple that of the previous period, according to [...]
Weaker than expected retail sales drags Wall Street down August 17, 2021 US stocks edged down during the open today after official figures showed US retail sales were much weaker than expected in July. The blue-chip S&P 500 dropped 0.55 per cent to 4,455.46 points and the Dow Jones lost 0.83 per cent to fall to 35,328.87 points. The tech-heavy Nasdaq extended the traditional benchmark’s losses to [...]
Post-Brexit trade: Irish exports to Britain jump by 70 per cent August 17, 2021 Irish goods exports to Great Britain increased by nearly 70 per cent in the last year, according to new figures published in Ireland today. The figures, released by the Irish Central Statistics Office, also show that goods imports from Great Britain to Ireland dropped by 32 per cent in the first half of 2021 – [...]
Hong Kong: First person jailed under national security law to appeal against conviction August 17, 2021 The first person convicted under Hong Kong national security law has filed an appeal against his conviction and nine-year sentence. Tong Ying-kit, 24, was found guilty of terrorism and inciting secession for driving a motorbike into a group of police officers while carrying a “Liberate Hong Kong” protest flag on July 1, 2020. The city’s [...]
Exclusive: Brexit and Covid spark UK workforce rethink as war on talent heats up August 17, 2021 Nearly half of British business leaders fear losing the UK’s best talent abroad following the pandemic and Brexit, according to new research shared exclusively with City A.M. this morning. The complexity of the decisions facing leadership as they define the next era of the workplace is illustrated in the research’s findings. For a starter, 29 [...]
Three companies that are on major hiring sprees right now August 16, 2021 If you’re currently on the lookout for a new and exciting job, we have some pretty good news for you. We’ve noticed a real spike in the amount of jobs popping up on our brilliant job board lately. Incredible companies in London (and beyond, if you feel like a new adventure) are on hiring sprees [...]
Post Office and DPD sign click-and-collect delivery deal August 16, 2021 The Post Office is teaming up with French van delivery company DPD for click-and-collect services in the national mail service’s first partnership in its 360-year history. From next week, customers will be able to choose to get their parcels delivered by DPD couriers directly to a Post Office branch. As employees return to offices, the [...]
Long read: the office, pay cuts, promotions and cities. Transcending the gender gap post-pandemic August 14, 2021 Cabinet ministers and CEOs are falling over themselves trying to bark us back into the office. Some are even threatening to cut our pay if we move too far away, but their sledgehammer approach is not winning converts, especially amongst women. Over the course of sixteen months of remote work, many of us have felt [...]