The prospect of the eurozone falling into recession is looming larger after a further sign of deep problems in Germany, Europe's largest economy.
Survey data suggests Germany's private sector shrank in September for the first time since 2013, when the eurozone was still dealing with the fallout from a sovereign debt crisis.
Car makers on the Continent warned today that a no-deal Brexit put millions of jobs and billions of euros in revenue at risk.
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Wages are flatlining because companies are scrapping swathes of mid-tier positions - replacing them with algorithms and cheap offshore labour, according to a new report.
White-collar recruitment specialist Hays found that with jobs like paralegal work and administration, new technology is making these roles redundant, leaving over-qualified professionals working in lower-tier positions instead.
UK wages flatline as robots take office jobs, pushing skilled workers into low-paid roles
PA news agency
Some human reviewers employed by the tech firms, ostensibly to check the accuracy of AI assistants, claimed they heard private, intimate and illegal conversations while carrying out their jobs.
"A key group of our members will be taking action from later this week and we will have no hesitation in escalating the dispute of that is what it takes.
The UK's largest peacetime repatriation has been launched after Thomas Cook ceased trading in the early hours of Monday morning when they failed to secure a last-ditch rescue deal.
Her sister Katie Langley, 23, told the PA news agency the group had paid between £35,000 and £40,000 for the two-week trip through Thomas Cook, including flights and hotels.
Softbank ploughed millions into WeWork at a sky-high valuation of $47bn in January. Now, the office sharing start-up is struggling to attract buyers for its shares at a third of that price tag and could be forced to launch an IPO at $10bn, according to the news agency.
The contraction in manufacturing worsened with the PMI sliding to a gruelling 41.4, from 43.5 in August, and what’s worse, the services index also weakened, to 52.5 from 54.8 last month. Many analysts will use this as justification for evidence that the manufacturing recession is spreading into the rest of the economy, but the problem is that the services PMI is an unreliable indicator for such a shift.It often exhibits large swings for no reason whatsoever. That said, we don’t want to stand in the way of the main story here. These headlines are ugly, and more-or-less confirm that the German economy entered recession in Q2 and Q3. Uncertainty over global trade, and the tariff stand-off between China and the US, are now driving a deterioration in German manufacturing, which is as bad as during the 2008 crash.
Professor Henrietta Moore, Director of the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity, said:
Adopting the Institute for Global Prosperity’s vision for Universal Basic Services as policy represents a major step forward in renewing the social contract in the UK. It shows a clear commitment to enhancing the living standards of millions in an increasingly insecure economic climate.
Our ideas around UBS were developed in response to the changing realities of the modern economy. The livelihoods and life chances of millions of people are coming under increasing threat from rising costs for housing, food and other essentials. At the same time, too many are faced with insecure work, low pay and the prospect that their jobs and whole industries could disappear due to automation and technological change. Simply carrying on as we have before will not alter these trends.
UBS provides an affordable way for us to meet these challenges, providing an enhanced safety net that can simultaneously provide the foundations for full participation in our economy and stem the rampant inequality that’s eating away at our society. To operate effectively, we have outlined how it must go hand-in-hand with democratic accountability at local level. UBS must be an expression of our shared social needs, with communities themselves in control.
Labour's idea of introducing a shorter working week a fair amount of support.
Arguments against a four day, 32-hour week were similar to those used against cutting hours to a mere 60 per week in the 19th century:
YouGov polling shows a majority of the public back the idea:
Billions of euros in revenues supporting millions of jobs are at risk from the “seismic” impact of a no-deal Brexit, Europe’s car makers have said.
As the UK hurtles towards the 31 October Brexit deadline with little sign of a new deal, bodies representing the industry united to issue a joint plea to avert a no-deal. Such an outcome, they said, would have an “immediate and devastating” impact on one of the continent’s most successful sectors and employer for 13.8 million people across the EU.
“The UK’s departure from the EU without a deal would trigger a seismic shift in trading conditions, with billions of euros of tariffs threatening to impact consumer choice and affordability on both sides of the Channel,” a group of 21 national trade associations, along with a number of Europe-wide bodies, wrote in a statement today.
No-deal Brexit will have 'seismic' effect on millions of car industry jobs, say manufacturers
