Category Archives: Business

Work-life balance more important than pay for employees worldwide

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Annual survey finds workers have ‘multifaceted expectations’ after changes cause by Covid pandemic

Work-life balance has soared in importance for workers around the world, becoming their top motivator and pushing pay into second place, according to an annual international survey of thousands of employees.

It is the first time that finding or keeping a job that fits in with the rest of their lives has outranked salary in the 22-year history of the international recruitment company Randstad’s annual review of the world of work, highlighting the corporate revolution caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Hospitality firms ‘to incur £1bn costs from employer NICs on 774,000 more workers’

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Industry body says businesses and jobs at risk unless Rachel Reeves’s tax changes delayed or altered

The hospitality industry will incur an extra £1bn of costs for 774,000 of its workers who will be newly eligible for employer national insurance contributions from April, endangering jobs and businesses, a leading industry body has claimed.

UKHospitality, which represents thousands of restaurants, hotels, pubs, cafes and nightclubs, is calling on the government to delay or alter changes to the tax announced in Rachel Reeves’s October’s budget in order to protect jobs.

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Bitcoin hits new record high, dollar dips ahead of Trump inauguration – business live

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Bitcoin rises by 4% past $109,000, reversing earlier losses; Donald Trump meme coin price tanks after wife Melania also launches token

The UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will travel to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this week in the hope of convincing some of the world’s largest companies to invest, with allies saying she will use spending cuts rather than further tax increases to meet her own fiscal rules.

At the same time, the Treasury is considering a push to cut the benefits bill, in a move that is causing nervousness among Labour MPs.

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Shares in Daily Mirror owner Reach rise as it says it will beat profit forecasts

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Publisher was helped by strong digital advertising performance towards end of year, say analysts

Shares in the owner of the Daily Mirror rose more than a quarter after the publisher said it expects to beat annual profit expectations, after a strong end to the year and the benefit of deep cost-cutting in recent years.

Reach, which owns national papers including the Mirror and Express and scores of local titles including the Manchester Evening News and the Liverpool Echo, said the profit upgrade was because of a strong final quarter last year.

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KPMG under investigation over audit of gambling company Entain

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FRC confirms inquiry into accounting firm’s 2022 audit of Ladbrokes, Coral and Sportingbet owner

The accounting firm KPMG is under investigation by the sector’s UK regulator over its audit of the 2022 accounts of the gambling company Entain.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said its enforcement division would be examining the conduct of the “big four” accounting firm, without saying what the investigation related to.

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Melania Trump launches meme coin as crypto rallies on Donald’s return

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President-elect’s $Trump coin more than halved in value before steadily recovering on Sunday

The incoming US first lady, Melania Trump, has followed her husband’s lead by launching a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency meme coin, amid a rally in digital currencies as he prepares to return to the White House.

The price of the incoming president’s token, $Trump, had tripled to more than $70 (£57), giving it a total value of over $14bn shortly after its launch on Friday. However, the launch of his wife’s coin, $Melania, pared back those gains as investors piled into her rival coin.

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Smelters will close without green aluminium funding, Albanese warns as Dutton labels $2bn pledge a ‘con job’

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Federal government aims to encourage power-intensive producers to switch to renewables by 2036

Anthony Albanese says smelters will close and cost many jobs without their newly announced aluminium production incentive, which opposition leader Peter Dutton has labelled a “con job”.

The mining industry welcomed $2bn in federal funding to incentivise power-intensive aluminium producers to switch to renewables by 2036, with Rio Tinto calling it a “critical piece in helping future-proof the industry”.

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Lebedev’s London Live TV channel closes after decade of mounting losses

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Station was crown jewel of Jeremy Hunt’s strategy to populate the UK with dozens of local TV stations

At midnight on Sunday, London Live, the capital’s dedicated TV channel and crown jewel of Jeremy Hunt’s strategy to populate the UK with dozens of local TV stations, will cease broadcasting after a little over a decade.

Back in 2010, the then Conservative culture secretary’s local TV plan was criticised as financially unviable by much of the media industry, but London was the exception.

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Champagne makers say sales losing fizz amid global gloom and changing habits

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Shipments fell nearly 10% last year with French firms blaming economic and political anxiety, and cheaper drinks

Changing habits and the gloomy state of the world are taking the fizz out of French champagne sales, the producers’ association has said, with shipments down nearly 10% last year.

Consumers in crucial markets such as the US and home country France cut down on the luxury beverage, as economic and political anxiety dampened the party mood.

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Mined diamonds are a waste of money, an expert says. Here’s why

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Lab-grown diamonds sell for one-quarter of the price of traditional ones and an Australian wholesale broker says he can’t tell the difference

When Steve Richards, a gemologist trained to identify grades of precious jewels, was considering a Christmas present for his wife, he settled on a pair of diamond earrings.

These diamonds, however, were not formed deep in the Earth over millions or billions of years and brought to the surface through volcanic eruptions. They were grown in a lab over a matter of weeks and bought for a fraction of the price.

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Clean water campaigners claim victory in Windermere sewage case

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United Utilities has dropped legal fight to block access to data on the discharge of treated sewage in Lake District

The water company United Utilities has conceded defeat in its legal battle to block public access to data on treated sewage it is discharging into Windermere in the Lake District.

Company officials initially claimed that data from phosphorus monitors at a main sewage treatment works at the lake was not environmental information. The company also wanted to block access to data from Cunsey Beck, a site of special scientific interest, which flows into Windermere.

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Labour pledges to make Sunday trains as reliable as weekday services

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Government plans to renationalise railways will establish new public body to improve the network

Sunday train services will be as reliable as those on weekdays under plans to renationalise the railways, the new transport secretary will claim in a keynote speech on Monday.

Issuing a series of pledges on which the government will be judged by millions of passengers – as well as its political opponents – Heidi Alexander will cite the creation of a network “where Sunday services are as ­reliable as Monday’s” as one of her key priorities.

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‘You can’t be pro-billionaire and pro-working class’: Biden’s labor chief on return of Trump

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Julie Su, acting labor secretary, fears many of Biden’s pro-worker policies will be undone by the new administration

Even as Donald Trump says he will battle for America’s workers, the acting secretary of labor, Julie Su, is voicing fears that Trump will undo many of Joe Biden’s pro-worker policies, which include protecting workers from extreme heat and extending overtime pay to millions more workers.

In an interview with the Guardian, Su said that Trump might fall far short on delivering for workers considering the first Trump administration’s many anti-worker policies and in light of his having Elon Musk and other billionaires advising him. “It’s one thing to say you’re pro-worker, and it’s quite another thing to do it,” Su said. “You can’t be pro-billionaire and pro-working class. You can’t be pro-Elon Musk and pro-worker.”

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Scotland’s largest haggis maker creating new recipe to meet US rules

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Macsween working to circumvent food regulations that have banned traditional recipe in US for more than 50 years

Scotland’s largest haggis maker is creating a “compliant” recipe of the nation’s most famous dish to circumvent strict American food regulations after more than 50 years in exile.

The decision by Macsween of Edinburgh comes after traditional haggis was banned by the US authorities in 1971, taking issue with the sheep’s-lung component of the recipe, which was then prohibited for use as human food by federal regulation.

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‘All hands on deck’: Bird flu in US poultry puts state cooperation to the test

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Unusually late migration season means poultry operations may continue to see H5N1 outbreaks, officials say

Maryland has detected bird flu among three different commercial poultry flocks in the past week, marking the state’s first outbreak in more than a year. The discoveries come shortly after the establishment of a joint command with Delaware following the latter state’s detection of H5N1 in two other poultry operations.

Although the deadly bird flu has circulated in North America since 2022, the past few months have been especially brutal for the poultry industry. More than 20 million egg-laying hens died in the fall, the worst rates since the outbreak began, and egg prices have risen as a result.

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FTSE 100 hits record as interest rate hopes push down UK borrowing costs

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Nearly every share on index rose after fall in value of pound helped multinationals listed in London

The UK’s blue-chip stock index has hit a record high, as hopes of interest rate cuts this year drove down government borrowing costs.

Almost every share on the FTSE 100 rose on Friday, the fall in the value of the pound bolstering multinationals listed in London and propelling the index above 8,500 points for the first time.

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UK mortgage rules could be eased to increase growth

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FCA also aims to change law to try to prevent a repeat of mass compensation schemes for consumers such as PPI

Mortgage rules could be loosened by the City regulator as it comes under government pressure to increase economic growth and home ownership across the UK.

The move to “simplify responsible lending” for property purchases is part of a range of proposals put forward by the Financial Conduct Authority in an attempt to prove that the watchdog is not standing in the way of the Labour cabinet’s “growth mission”.

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China’s economy hits 5% growth target but rate among slowest in decades

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Latter part of 2024 ‘recovered remarkably’ after stimulus measures, says National Bureau of Statistics

China’s economy grew by 5% in 2024, in line with government targets but at the slowest rate since 1990 outside the Covid pandemic, according to official data.

Growth accelerated through the year, with an expansion of 5.4% in the final quarter, up from 4.6% in the third quarter, according to Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics.

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Apple suspends AI-generated news alert service after BBC complaint

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Inaccurate notices branded with broadcaster’s logo sent to iPhone users but tech firm works on improvements

Apple is suspending an artificial intelligence feature that made inaccurate summaries of news headlines.

The tech company received a complaint from the BBC after the AI-generated service issued a news alert branded with the corporation’s logo falsely telling some iPhone users that Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Brian Thompson, had shot himself.

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Australia news live: relief for Sydney morning commuters as train unions ordered to halt action; man charged over death threats to Jewish group

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First charge by AFP’s Special Operation Avalite established in December. Follow today’s news headlines live

Richard Marles will become the first minister to visit Kiribati in almost two years, AAP reports.

The deputy prime minister and defence minister is travelling to Kiribati for high-level talks with the nation’s re-elected government, which closed its country’s borders in 2024 while national elections were held.

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