Category Archives: Business

CEO regrets her firm took on Facebook moderation work after staff ‘traumatised’

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Outsourcer Sama facing legal cases brought by Kenya-based employees alleging exposure to graphic content

The chief executive of a company contracted to moderate Facebook posts in east Africa has said she regretted taking on the work, after its staff said they were left traumatised by graphic content on the social media platform.

The US outsourcing firm Sama is facing a number of legal cases brought by Kenya-based employees, who alleged being exposed to graphic and traumatic content such as videos of beheadings, suicide and other material at a moderation hub.

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Scottish public spending deficit falls as oil revenues hit record high

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Both sides of constitutional debate use Gers data to argue case for and against independence

Scotland’s public spending deficit has fallen from a record peak last year, as oil and gas revenues reached their highest-ever level after a global rise in oil prices.

The government expenditure and revenue Scotland (Gers) report calculated a per-person deficit – the gap between the amount raised through all tax and spending on all public services – as £1,521 in the 2022-23 financial year, down from £2,184 the previous year.

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United Utilities fined £800,000 for taking 22bn litres of water from aquifer

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Company breached three-year rolling limit on abstraction licence at Fylde aquifer in 2018

United Utilities has been fined £800,000 after illegally abstracting 22bn litres of water in Lancashire, causing damage to an important aquifer that will take years to recover.

The illegal removal of water from the Fylde aquifer, which happened during a period of dry weather in 2018, is likely to have negatively affected river flows.

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Jamie and Jools Oliver pay themselves almost £7m in dividends

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Payout for 2022 up from £5.6m a year before, as income bounces back after collapse of UK restaurant empire

Jamie Oliver and his wife, Jools, have paid themselves £6.8m in dividends, up from £5.6m a year before, after a bounceback in television and restaurant income.

The celebrity chef, whose UK restaurant empire collapsed in 2019 with the loss of 1,000 jobs, has 70 restaurants around the world run by franchise partners and has sold 2m books spun out from last year’s TV series Jamie’s One-Pan Wonders.

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Bank of Ireland glitch let customers withdraw money they didn’t have

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‘Technical issue’ allowed transfers and withdrawals beyond customer limits and made online banking unavailable

Bank of Ireland has apologised for an IT glitch that meant some customers were able to withdraw money they did not have in their accounts at cashpoints.

The bank said it had resolved the “technical issue”, which had also allowed transfers beyond customer limits and had made its online banking and mobile app services unavailable.

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Matildas brand more valuable than any other national sports team, marketing expert says

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Australian women’s football team has seen a five-fold increase in value since the start of the 2023 World Cup, analysis shows

The Matildas are Australia’s most valuable national sporting team and the worth of their brand has increased fivefold since the start of the 2023 World Cup, new analysis shows.

That brand will only increase in value over the coming days if they continue on their winning stomach-knotting run, although they do face a challenge in retaining momentum after some of the euphoria subsides, given their irregular playing schedule.

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UK basic wage growth hits record high; Russia’s central bank lifts rates to 12% – as it happened

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UK regular pay growth highest since 2001 while unemployment rate rises unexpectedly; rouble recovers afters Bank of Russia raises rates at extraordinary meeting

The statement doesn’t mention the rouble, which dropped to its lowest level in nearly 17 months yesterday. The Russian currency has been boosted by the central bank’s move.

It now takes 95 roubles to buy a dollar, whereas yesterday the exchange rate was at 102 roubles per dollar at one stage.

The decision is aimed at limiting price stability risks.

Inflationary pressure is building up. As of 7 August, the annual rate of inflation rose to 4.4% while current price growth rates continue to increase. Over the last three months current price growth amounted to 7.6% on average in annualised terms on a seasonally adjusted basis. The same core inflation measure went up to 7.1%.

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Russia’s central bank hikes interest rates by 3.5 percentage points as rouble falls

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Emergency decision is intended to halt slide after currency dropped to weakest point in almost 17 months

Russia’s central bank has hiked interest rates by 3.5 percentage points in an emergency move aimed at halting the rouble’s recent slide, after it fell to its weakest point in almost 17 months.

The decision to raise the key rate from 8.5% to 12% was announced after an extraordinary meeting of the bank’s board of directors, called after the rouble plunged past the psychologically key level of 100 to the dollar on Monday morning.

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Global wealth fall cost 3.5m people ‘dollar millionaire’ status last year

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UBS says assets dipped for first time since financial crisis as high inflation and struggling currencies took toll

More than 3.5 million people lost their “dollar millionaire” status last year during the first fall in global wealth since the 2008 financial crisis.

The number of adults with assets of more than $1m (£790,000) fell from 62.9 million at the end of 2021 to 59.4 million at the end of 2022, according to the UBS annual wealth report, published on Tuesday. The Swiss bank said global wealth was depressed by high inflation and the collapse of many currencies against the dollar.

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Harvey Nichols boss resigns after strategy dispute with owner

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Manju Malhotra, who joined retailer 25 years ago, is understood to have disagreed over pace of change

The boss of Harvey Nichols has quit the retailer she first joined 25 years ago after tensions over its strategy, and a member of its owning family will take the reins.

Manju Malhotra started at the Knightsbridge store in London in 1998 as a newly qualified accountant and worked her way up through the ranks before becoming chief executive in January 2020, just before the Covid pandemic forced stores to shut.

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China stops releasing youth unemployment rates amid economic gloom

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Release of figures suspended in order to ‘optimise labour force survey statistics’, says bureau, after youth jobless figure hit record 21.3% in June

China has said it would suspend the release of youth unemployment figures, as its central bank cut a key interest rate to boost flagging growth.

Youth unemployment hit a record 21.3% in June, as a slew of disappointing figures in recent months reflected a slump in China, with its post-Covid rebound fading.

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Top Chinese developer’s financial woes cast shadow over Australian property market

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Huge housing estates developed by Risland on the fringes of Sydney and Melbourne could be affected as shares of parent company Country Garden plunge

The financial problems of one of China’s biggest property companies, Country Garden, could reverberate in the Australian property market, where its subsidiary Risland Australia is developing two massive housing estates on the fringes of Sydney and Melbourne.

Delays in the projects or a corporate failure would have significant impacts on the amount of new housing coming on to the market during a dire affordability crisis.

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Long delays at Panama Canal after drought hits global shipping route

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Number of vessels able to pass through each day limited because lower availability of water

Commercial ships are facing long queues and delays to travel through the Panama Canal as a lengthy drought in the Central American country has led to a cut in the number of vessels able to pass through one of the world’s most important trading routes.

In a fresh demonstration of the impact of the climate crisis on global business and trade, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), which manages the waterway, introduced restrictions on the number of transiting vessels as a result of the drought.

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Car park fees and other charges kept Australia’s big airports profitable during Covid recovery

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Airports lost money on aviation operations between 2021 and 2023 but car parking remained a huge source of income

Australia’s major airports have all been haemorrhaging money from aviation operations, but were able to stay profitable during the Covid recovery from tens of millions of dollars in car parking fees, retail and other charges.

In its latest airport monitoring report of Australia’s four major airports – Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane – the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) renewed its recommendation to the government to require the airports to report more detailed data about the true costs of providing services to airlines and travellers.

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Sharp rise in cost of food basics forces UK families ‘to make desperate choices’

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Which? research finds cheese, butter and bread are up by more than 30% in the past two years, hitting the poor hardest

The cost of some basic food items such as cheese, butter and bread has soared by more than 30% in the last two years, forcing poorer households to “make desperate choices between keeping up with their bill payments or putting food on the table,” campaigners have said.

Food price inflation has slowed in recent months, but costs remain much higher than they were two years ago, disproportionally affecting low-income households, according to research by consumer body Which? shared exclusively with the Guardian.

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Fears many Australians will abandon home insurance as premiums jump 50% in high-risk areas

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Median premiums across all areas rose 28% in the year to March and actuaries warn climate disasters are driving them to unaffordable heights

Home insurance premiums have climbed by 50% in high-risk parts of Australia as global heating increases the frequency and cost of climate disasters, a new report has found.

The Actuaries Institute’s research on home insurance affordability and funding for flood costs, released on Monday, found median home insurance premiums rose by 28% in the year to March, sitting at an average of $1,894 across all states.

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Britain has felt the shift to home working more than most countries

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For many reasons it is no surprise that the office exodus is so pronounced in the historical centre of Anglo-Saxon capitalism

Working from home is a seismic shift in employment patterns that has rocked businesses, charities and public sector organisations across the world.

From Hong Kong and Singapore to London, New York and Toronto, white collar workers have changed the way they work, shop and pursue leisure, culture and recreation, shifting many local economies on their axis. For many towns and cities it’s as if the sun shines at a different point in the day, such is the transformation in how about 60% of people conduct their lives.

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Don’t call me Captain Killjoy: David Littleproud opposes Matildas’ public holiday

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National party leader says it’s easy for the PM to call for a national holiday if Australia win the World Cup, but business would suffer

David Littleproud has opposed a public holiday for Australia if the Matildas win the World Cup, while insisting he does not want to be labelled “Captain Killjoy”.

A day after Australia defeated France in a thrilling penalty shootout to set up a semi-final clash against England, the National party leader said business groups were right to worry about the costs of a public holiday.

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Shell accused of eco-destruction in push to demolish old HQ

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Plan to knock down former offices in Aberdeen will release ‘vast amount of carbon emissions in atmosphere’ warn experts

Aberdeen is arguably best known for two things: granite – found in nearby quarries and used to construct almost all of the coastal city’s buildings – and oil. After the discovery of a significant reserve in the North Sea in the 1970s, Aberdeen became known as Europe’s oil capital and a thriving oil and gas industry sprang up in Scotland’s north-east.

At the centre of the boom was the multinational company Shell, which built a five-storey modernist headquarters in the city’s Tullos area, from where it operated for half a century, before moving last year. Now the building has become the subject of a bitter row after Shell announced its intention to demolish rather than upgrade and repurpose it.

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Coles and Woolworths say their profits are modest – but does that stack up?

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The two big Australian supermarkets under scrutiny at a federal parliamentary inquiry into economic dynamism

When a representative of Australia’s biggest supermarket chain answered questions at a parliamentary committee about profits, the response created an impression that margins were modest and, if anything, falling.

The assertion appears to rub against data that shows Woolworths and Coles have greatly increased profits derived from grocery items during the inflationary period and related cost-of-living crisis.

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