Chancellor Rishi Sunak and his team has held meetings with business leaders as pressure mounts on the government to provide assistance to companies impacted by the Omicron variant. Mr Sunak cut short his trip to the US to hold more talks with business chiefs in response to the fresh COVID crisis on Friday. He and his team held talks with […]

FILE PHOTO: Logo and flags of Bayer AG are pictured outside a plant of the German pharmaceutical and chemical maker in Wuppertal, Germany August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File PhotoBERLIN (Reuters) – Bayer faces a billion-dollar investor class action lawsuit in Germany over the takeover of U.S. seed manufacturer Monsanto, specialist law firm Tilp Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft said on Wednesday. Tilp said it […]

Households could be locked into six-month energy deals under proposals by Ofgem to shake up the price cap which protects millions of consumers – but which has also been blamed for the collapse of dozens of suppliers. The deals, similar to fixed-term mortgages, would see users pay a tariff set by the regulator in the month their contract starts and […]

Working households are facing the worst Christmas wage squeeze in almost a decade, according to a report by the TUC. The union organisation demanded the government deliver a “proper plan to get pay packets rising“, arguing that pressure on budgets from soaring bills and falls in wages were only set to intensify in the months ahead. Its analysis of official […]

Rents for New Zealand’s 1.3 million tenants rose 9.4 per cent annually, far outstripping the rate of inflation and placing many in what one academic called a “pretty bleak” position. New data out today from Massey University today showed Hawke’s Bay tenants had the steepest price rises, up 20.4 per cent annually, from $401/week last June to $483/week in June […]

From RNZ Hundreds of specialist tech workers and some agricultural workers will be allowed to travel to New Zealand under new border exception rules. Software and application programmers, ICT managers, ICT security specialists and multimedia specialists will be welcome to help meet demand which can’t be matched domestically, Digital Economy and Communications Minister David Clark said. Read More Why NZ’s […]

US inflation has hit a 39-year high in the latest sign of a cost of living squeeze for consumers in the world’s biggest economy. Figures from America’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed consumer price index (CPI) inflation hit 6.8% last month, the biggest year-on-year surge in prices since June 1982. The reading, which was in line with expectations, was […]

WASHINGTON — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plunged last week to the lowest level in 52 years, more evidence that the U.S. job market is recovering from last year’s coronavirus recession. Unemployment claims dropped by 43,000 to 184,000 last week, the lowest since September 1969, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week moving average, which smooths out […]

Supply chain disruption looks set to keep prices high and continue hitting consumers in the pocket well into next year, according to a new report by ASB. Covid-19 has had two major effects on global trade, said ASB senior economist Mark Smith. “Firstly, it has confined the world’s population to their homes, leading to a huge increase in online buying […]

PARIS (Reuters) – Amazon proposed raising book delivery charges in France to around 2 euros from almost nothing if parliament withdrew a bill that would make it more difficult for the e-commerce group to undercut local bookshops, a French senator told Reuters.The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics center in Bretigny-sur-Orge, near Paris, France, December 7, 2021. […]