Manpower's seasonally adjusted employment outlook balance fell to zero for Q1 2012, the lowest reading since that for Q4 2009 and down from +1 per cent for Q4 2011.
That isn’t good news for the 2.62m people looking for work. The jobless rate hit a 15-year high of 8.3 percent in the three months to September and is forecast to rise further when October data is released tomorrow.
And, the survey found large regional variations, with employers in the East of the country hiring more than those in the West and firms in the North East were more optimistic than those in the North West.
Mark Cahill, Manpower's managing director, said: "The 2012 jobs market sits on a knife-edge. In some ways this is a reflection of a weakening economy. We hear stories about companies hoarding cash and not investing, and we see a number of business sectors battening down the hatches.
However, the survey also points out that there are still hundreds of thousands of vacancies across the UK and many sectors are still hiring, particularly the utility companies.
And manufacturers, too, showed tentative signs of confidence, with their employment outlook balance coming in at 5 per cent and chiming with recruitment findings in a recent survey by the EEF, the main trade body for British manufacturers.
However, employment intentions in Britain's key finance and business services sector flat-lined, down from a reading of 5 per cent for the final quarter of this year and a strong level of 10 per cent a year ago.
For more information, please contact Glazers, Chartered Accountants London or visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 2.9 / 187 )The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has today published its report into the circumstances that led to the near collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in 2008 and has admitted shortcomings in the way it handled the crisis.
It has confessed that it failed to spot the pressures building up in the banking system and did not understand the pitfalls of the reliance on the wholesale money markets. It goes so far as to say that many aspects of its work were “inadequate” or deficient”.
And the FSA has also accepted that it missed the implications for a bank like RBS when funding dried up, as it did during the credit crunch, saying: “By 2007 the entire UK banking system was dependent on wholesale funding and therefore liquidity had become a huge issue... that the FSA failed to appreciate..."
However, the report lays most of the blame at the door of the RBS board, led by Chief Executive Fred Goodwin, who earned the nickname ‘Fred the Shred’ for his dictatorial management style. The report accuses the board of making “poor decisions” and failing to carry out proper due diligence on its acquisition of ABN Amro Holding NV.
Mr Goodwin pushed through the world’s biggest bank takeover, the 72 billion-euro purchase of ABN Amro even after global money markets froze in 2007. The acquisition saddled RBS with bad debt and depleted its cash reserves, eventually leading to the £45.5bn bailout by the taxpayer.
Lord Turner, chairman of the FSA said that the public wants to know how the bank failed and why no one has been punished. In the report he says: "The fact that no individual has been found legally responsible for the failure begs the question: if action cannot be taken under existing rules, should not the rules be changed for the future?"
For more information, please contact Glazers, Chartered Accountants London or visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 3 / 189 )In wide-ranging White Paper proposals by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), outlined in parliament yesterday, businesses that currently receive individual bills for each of their sites and have to deal with a number of water suppliers could potentially opt for just one national bill, leading to lower prices.
The new White Paper, 'Water for Life', also sets out how river water quality will be improved with the help of local organisations, and pledges to reform the water industry with further deregulation “to drive economic growth".
At the moment, only huge companies, which use the equivalent of 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water on a single site, are entitled to change supplier.
Launching the Paper, environment secretary Caroline Spelman said: “Currently we enjoy clean water at the turn of a tap, and watch it drain away without a thought. But parts of England actually have less rainfall per person than many Mediterranean countries."
Unprecedented dry weather conditions this year, and low water levels, led Anglian Water last week to ask the Environment Agency for a drought permit, in December.
Water companies will also be able to set new social tariffs for people who struggle to pay their bills, and there will be measures to tackle bad debt, which results in householders carrying the can for those who can't or won't pay at a cost of £15 per year each.
Commenting on the White Paper, Richard Lakin, UK Water Sector Leader at PwC said: "Some major changes are proposed such as the introduction of retail competition for supply to all business customers in England, reform of the upstream water trading and abstraction regimes, easing of restrictions on new entry to the sector by specialist water and sewerage service providers and a loosening of the special regime that restricts water company mergers.”
For more information, please contact Glazers, Chartered Accountants London or visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 3 / 144 )Figures from the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) show that output has fallen from 0.4 per cent to 0.3 per cent in the three months to the end of November and that even though the recession is over, the period of depression is likely to continue.
The think tank’s estimate comes after figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed industrial output to have fallen by 0.7 percent in October, raising concerns that the country may be sliding into recession.
Most economists believe that the UK may be heading for at least one quarter of contracting economic output, if not an outright recession, which is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. NIESR says that it interprets the term "recession" to mean a period when output is falling or receding, while "depression" is a period when output is depressed below its previous peak.
The report also calls for further economic stimulus in the UK, saying: “these data lend support to the further loosening of UK monetary policy." They also stated that they don’t expect output to pass its peak of early 2008 until 2013.
The Bank of England will meet today for its monthly policy meeting and will be under pressure to increase its stimulus package. Apart from the report from NIESR, the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has called for a further £50bn of quantitative easing.
David Kern, Chief Executive of the BCC, said: “The disappointing forecast ... with a prediction of negative growth in the current quarter, shows how important it is for the government to introduce measures which will help to stimulate the economy."
However, most economists don’t expect the Bank to agree on more quantitative easing at this month’s meeting but they do predict that a further amount will be injected in February when the current £75bn, launched in October, will be complete.
For more information, please contact Glazers, Chartered Accountants London or visit www.glazers.co.uk
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( 3 / 137 )It has been announced that investors whose ISA savings are lost in the collapse of a financial firm will be able to refill their annual allowance under new Treasury proposals. This is in a bid to strengthen consumer confidence in the security of the product.
Under the current rules, any funds lost if the provider folds would still count towards the £10,680 annual limit, of which £5,340 can be in cash. However, under the proposed changes, the amount able to be invested will increase to £11,280 from April next year and savers will be able to reinstate up to the balance of their account in a new ISA.
In a statement to MPs, Mark Hoban, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that the plans included allowing savers who have lost their cash ISA to save the equivalent amount, in the same year, in a new account with another provider.
They would also allow an investor the opportunity of reinvesting any compensation paid out if a stocks and shares ISA is affected by a financial firm's collapse and would permit investors with ISAs directly affected by the collapse of Lehman Brothers to reinstate the same level of investment, irrespective of whether compensation has been paid.
In the statement Mr Hoban said that the changes “will enable investors whose ISAs are affected by the failure or default of a financial firm to continue to benefit from tax-advantaged savings,"
He added that they "also demonstrate the government's commitment to ensure that the ISA remains a secure, accessible and tax-advantaged saving product,” he added.
In related news, Halifax recently launched a Junior Stocks and Shares ISA, which tracks the performance of the FTSE 100 Index and allows parents to save for their children’s future after the Government’s decision to extend tax-efficient savings for children.
For more information, please contact Glazers, Chartered Accountants London or visit www.glazers.co.uk
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