Business week in pictures

Economic gloom was everywhere this week, with the Bank of England cutting its growth outlook and warning that Britain faces a long and 'choppy' recovery. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

City workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush-hour. Standard & Poor's has kept the government on notice that it is still reviewing Britain's creditworthiness after the Bank of England downgraded its forecasts for the country's economic growth. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters

Reflections in the window of a shop advertising a sale in central London. Worries about job prospects, soaring food prices and the general economic outlook amid government cutbacks have sent consumer confidence plunging to a 15-month low, according to Nationwide. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

A clock above an estate agent's office in Leicester. Government austerity measures are already slowing the British economy down, according to figures published which reveal renewed falls in house prices and sagging high street sales. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

Traders in crude oil and natural gas options at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Expressing anxiety about the darkening outlook in America, the US Federal Reserve warned that a recovery in the world's largest economy was likely to be 'more modest in the near term' than had been anticipated Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Nepalese youths hold passport application forms in Kathmandu; more than 250,000 young people reportedly leave Nepal to work abroad every year. But global youth unemployment has hit a record high and is expected to rise further, according to a report from the International Labour Organisation, which echoes warnings in the UK that young people continue to be the hardest hit by the recession. Photograph: Narendra Shrestha/EPA

And UK economists said the latest jobless data still pointed to tougher times ahead for Britain's 2.46 million unemployed. The number of people unemployed for more than 12 months increased by 33,000 over the second quarter to reach 796,000, the highest since early 1997. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Tourists at the Blue Lagoon in Svartsendi, Iceland. Economic gloom has even extended to the holiday industry: strong booking trends among British holidaymakers stalled abruptly in mid-May, forcing tour operators to lower prices ahead of the peak travel season in order to keep filling their aircraft and hotels, according to market leaders Thomas Cook and Tui Travel. Photograph: Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images

Members of the media record a Toyota Prius as it brakes at 85mph. A safety scandal over sticking accelerators that forced Toyota into a crisis-stricken recall of millions of vehicles may have been overblown, according to tentative findings from a US government investigation that suggest driver error was the cause of most of the Japanese manufacturer's 'runaway' cars. Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters

A man wades in from the ocean near a pool of dispersed oil after pulling crabs from a line on a recently reopened public beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana. BP will have to wait a few more days before declaring its Deepwater Horizon well permanently sealed because a tropical storm may be heading for the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images

A portrait of Queen Elizabeth II on an intaglio printing plate for the fifty pound note. James Hussey, the chief executive of De La Rue, the world's biggest producer of bank notes, has resigned with immediate effect following the discovery of serious problems with its paper-making operations. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

The disgraced former Hewlett-Packard boss Mark Hurd, who was ousted on Friday in a sexual harassment and expenses scandal involving former actor Jodie Fisher, has found a heavyweight ally in the billionaire Oracle software tycoon Larry Ellison. Photograph: Paul Sakuma/AP