Consumers are ‘freedom spending’ after an intense year, but on essentials rather than big-ticket items
With the cost of living crisis biting into budgets, Angela Jakovljebic decided to give her three daughters gift cards as presents, to spend on the post-Christmas sales.
Emily, Lilly and Mila weren’t too happy about their gifts when they received them, they say. But they felt better when they saw the sales in Parramatta.
Continue reading...Lifting age eligibility rules would help attract a wider range of skilled workers and professionals, Tourism and Transport Forum boss says
Australia’s peak tourism body wants the working holiday visa age cut-off to be lifted to provide a wider range of skilled workers and professionals.
The federal government is conducting a migration review to find ways of addressing worker shortages across Australia.
Continue reading...Ofcom reviews longstanding rules that allow pay-TV companies more ad minutes than public service rivals
The pay-TV provider Sky could lose as much as £150m a year in TV advertising revenue from proposals aimed at enabling the UK’s biggest free-to-air broadcasters to make more money and better compete with streaming services.
The broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, is reviewing historical rules that restrict the UK’s public service broadcasters (PSBs) – ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 – from running as many minutes of advertising on their main channels as rivals such as Sky are allowed.
Continue reading...Sympathy and irritation from public as thousands of RMT union members at Network Rail prepare to strike
Rail passengers were facing delays as they rushed to get the last trains before Christmas Eve services came to a halt, while Britain’s roads were braced for extra traffic as a result of the strikes on the railways.
People embarking on festive getaways or heading home for the holidays gathered on the concourses of major stations including London Euston and Birmingham New Street.
Continue reading...Airline apologises to passengers and promises to get them to Heathrow airport ‘early on Christmas morning’
Qantas passengers stranded in Azerbaijan after an emergency landing are expected to make it to London by Christmas morning, after the airline deployed a recovery flight from Australia.
The recovery flight left Sydney at 11.40am on Saturday and was expected to pick up the stranded passengers from Baku airport and continue on to London arriving “early on Christmas morning”, according to a statement Qantas released on Saturday afternoon.
Continue reading...VK Garment factory in Mae Sot is subject of a UK lawsuit against the supermarket from 130 ex-workers
Thai police have raided a clothing factory previously used by Tesco that is the subject of a UK lawsuit over alleged sweatshop conditions.
The Guardian revealed earlier this week that Burmese workers who produced F&F jeans for Tesco in Thailand reported being trapped in, in effect, forced labour, working 99-hour weeks for illegally low pay in appalling conditions.
Continue reading...Deadline is 31 January, although there will then be six-month grace period with such post still delivered
Do you have a book of stamps in your wallet, purse or drawer at home? Maybe you have stockpiled them to avoid future price rises.
If so, you need to be aware that the official deadline for using up stamps without barcodes – notably the regular first and second-class “everyday” stamps featuring the profile of the late Queen – is getting closer.
Continue reading...Passengers arriving in UK can expect longer queues while mail may not arrive in time for Christmas
Border Force officials will on Friday join the wave of industrial action across Britain, starting the first of a series of strikes at airports, while Royal Mail workers walk out again for two days before Christmas.
Passengers travelling into the UK have been warned to be prepared for longer queues at immigration in airports, while many letters and parcels will now go undelivered before Christmas, as staff take action over pay trailing behind inflation.
Continue reading...More than half of Brisbane company’s digital assets were deposited with Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange
Collapsed Australian crypto exchange Digital Surge is owed $33m by FTX, one of the biggest cryptocurrency platforms in the world before it collapsed in November.
Brisbane-based Digital Surge passed into administration earlier this month with more than half its digital assets deposited with FTX.
Continue reading...PwC predicts increase in divorces, slide in house prices and drop in happiness index
British wages next year will fall back to 2006 levels, while 2023 will also bring a slide in house prices and an increase in divorces, according to a forecast that finds the UK is on course to be a less happy place to live.
The consultancy firm PwC said a look ahead to 2023 showed there were few positive indicators, with most measures of the UK’s economic and social performance going into reverse.
Continue reading...Take care using candles and electric heaters, fire authorities warn, as Ofgem reveals gas and electricity bills are up by 86%
Fire authorities have urged householders to take care when using candles, wood burners and electric heaters to cut energy bills this Christmas after a spate of recent house fires.
Flat fires in Uxbridge and Harwich this month were caused by candles; fire chiefs in Cumbria, Hereford and Worcester reported more fires as householders used unswept chimneys and candles; and last month in Wakefield a blaze was caused by a tumble dryer being used overnight to save money.
Continue reading...Scottish secretary hints that Westminster may use rare power to block new law which removes need for diagnosis of gender dysphoria for gender recognition certificate
At the Scottish parliament Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, is taking questions. Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, asks about the gender recognition reform (Scotland) bill and amendments rejected by the Scottish government. He says the bill would allow a man standing trial for raping a woman to force his victim to refer to him as a woman, not a man, and he asks Sturgeon why she voted against an amendment that would have prevented this.
In response, Sturgeon says many amendments have been rejected in the past days. She says where amendments were rejected, it was often because there were alternative ways to add safeguards to the bill. These new safeguards covered sex offenders, she says.
Health and care is under huge strain in the run-up to Christmas. These figures suggest there is absolutely no slack in the system, which is dangerously close to overheating completely.
A key part of the problem is that the vast majority of hospital beds are full – around 95% – including with thousands of patients fit to be discharged. The lack of community and social care means they’ll be spending this Christmas in hospital.
Continue reading...Exporters optimistic as Penny Wong raises trade with her Chinese counterpart but many are also wary of being ‘burned again’ by volatile diplomatic relations
Australia’s lobster industry is cautiously optimistic that China could soon remove trade restrictions, but exporters are wary of being “burned again” by sanctions and volatile diplomatic relations.
Many businesses have been paying close attention to foreign affairs minister Penny Wong’s trip to China this week – the first by an Australian minister in three years – where she discussed “trade blockages” with her counterparts.
Continue reading...British Chamber of Commerce present government with urgent recommendations as members report struggling to sell into EU
More than three-quarters of firms say the government’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU has not helped them to expand their business in the last two years despite promises that it was an “oven-ready” deal.
A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has prompted the business lobby group to present the government with five urgent recommendations for enhancing the agreement, which has left many exporters struggling to sell into the EU under the current terms.
Continue reading...FTX founder set to be charged with eight criminal counts, including fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering offenses
Sam Bankman-Fried, the jailed founder of the collapsed crypto-currency exchange FTX, is expected to fly back to the US on Wednesday to face criminal charges after waiving his right to contest extradition from the Bahamas.
After several days of conflicting signals from Bankman-Fried’s US and Bahamian legal teams, the disgraced crypto-king appeared in court in Nassau to inform a magistrate judge of his decision.
Continue reading...Capital now top location by some distance after Cornwall led for several months during pandemic
The lockdown dream of leaving the city behind and owning a spacious house in the countryside or by the sea faded in 2022 as homebuyers picked up where they left off before the pandemic: house hunting in London.
Rightmove said the capital was 2022’s top location by some distance with searches 9% higher than last year. Meanwhile the number of searches for homes in Cornwall and Devon fell sharply although the counties, famous for their spectacular coastlines, hung on to second and third place on the property website’s annual list of most searched for locations.
Continue reading...Cut-back of cover for suppliers is latest in a series of headaches for founder of the troubled business
The troubled online beauty retailer THG faces more pain after a leading credit insurer reduced cover to its suppliers.
The Guardian can reveal that Allianz Trade, one of the UK’s largest credit insurers, cut back cover for suppliers to the beauty-to-nutrition retailer, formerly known as the Hut Group, in recent weeks.
Continue reading...Settlement means airline has reached a pay deal with unions across Europe, excluding Belgium
Ryanair has reached a deal with its pilots in Ireland that will restore the 20% pay cuts the airline made during the Covid pandemic.
The four-year pay deal will also see low single-digit percentage rises for the carrier’s home nation pilots in the next three financial years until March 2027.
Continue reading...If Beijing is expecting an immediate boost from abandoning its tough controls it is mistaken
From zero tolerance to “let it rip”. China has not just changed its mind on how to cope with Covid, it has executed the mother of all U-turns in response to slower growth and mounting civil unrest at the draconian lockdowns.
If Beijing is expecting an immediate economic boost from abandoning its tough controls it is mistaken. There will be a growth dividend from the policy shift but the state of the world’s second biggest economy will get worse before it gets better, and it will be next spring at least before the easing of restrictions starts to pay off.
Continue reading...FCA penalises bank after millions of customers were locked out of their accounts for weeks
City regulators have fined TSB £48m for “widespread and serious” failings related to the IT meltdown in 2018 that left millions of banking customers locked out of their accounts for weeks.
The long-awaited fine is expected to draw a line under the scandal, which tarnished the challenger bank’s reputation and forced its chief executive to step down within months of the botched move to a new IT platform.
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