Business week in pictures

Economic data stole the headlines this week with inflation and unemployment figures in the news. Speculation grew that the Bank of England will start raising interest rates this spring after the latest government figures for the cost of living showed the annual inflation rate shooting up to 3.7% in December. Pictured, men have their shoes cleaned in the City of London Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

Unemployment figures also caused alarm. The number of young people searching for a job almost reached the 1 million mark in November as officials figures showed Britain's worsening economic situation was in danger of creating a 'lost generation'. The number of adults under 25 out of work jumped by 32,000 to 951,000, pushing the youth unemployment rate up to 20.3% – the highest level since records began in 1992 Photograph: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Stepping into the debate, former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown warned that the world faces youth unemployment of 'epidemic proportions', as he urged joint action by the G20 group of developed and developing nations to tackle rising joblessness. During a speech in London, the former prime minister called for Barack Obama to take the lead in boosting education, training and job opportunities for the 81 million people under the age of 25 who are currently without work Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The prospect for young people contrasted sharply with the position of London bankers. Goldman Sachs is to lift the £1m bonus cap imposed on its 100 London-based partners last year as the Wall Street firm begins to hand out multimillion-pound payouts to its staff around the world Photograph: Luke MacGregor/Reuters

Citigroup returned to profit in 2010 for the first time since the banking crisis but while the bank's boss Vikram Pandit said it had 'turned the corner', the results disappointed investors. Citi's shares dropped as a fall in bond trading and investment banking fired fears that the bank, which scraped through the financial crisis on government support, still has major problems Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

On the UK high street, the HMV's woes continued as its suppliers faced having credit insurance withdrawn. Boss Simon Fox has called in expert debt advisers from accountancy firm KMPG to help implement a radical cost-reduction programme ahead of a key loan covenant test due to be carried out by the group's lending banks in April Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Given America's love of coffee and super-sized portions, it was inevitable that Starbucks should tie the two together in its latest offering: the massive new 'Trenta' cup size, holding 31 US fluid ounces – that's 917ml, or more than one and a half imperial pints – of beverage Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Also in the US, investors digested the news that Apple's chief executive, Steve Jobs, was taking another open-ended period of medical leave. The break is his third since being diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004. The company also announced that during the Christmas quarter it sold 7.3m iPads – as many as it sold in the previous two quarters – taking the total sold to 14.5m copies since its introduction in April Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A greater than expected surge in China's growth last year, and higher than forecast consumer inflation, fuelled fears of overheating and may prompt the government to tighten policy, analysts said. The figures, which confirmed that China surpassed Japan last year to become the world's second-largest economy after the US, showed GDP growth of 10.3% for 2010 Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

Burberry has smashed City forecasts thanks to the Chinese retail boom and growing demand for luxury goods among its wealthy client base. Like-for-like sales across Burberry's stores around the world jumped by 14% in the last three months of 2010. Burberry performed particularly well in China, where comparable sales leapt by more than 30% Photograph: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images

Jamie Oliver is helping Financial Times publisher Pearson to serve up record profits following the success of the celebrity chef's Jamie's 30-Minute Meals – the fastest selling non-fiction book of all time. Oliver's book has sold 1.2m copies since its launch last September, driving sales at Pearson's offshoot Penguin, whose performance has also been lifted by the success of The Fry Chronicles, written by television presenter Stephen Fry Photograph: Mike Marsland/WireImage/Getty Images

The British government and leaders of BP came out fighting for the company's new Russian strategy, dismissing criticism in the US and saying the tie-up with the Kremlin's oil group was the right way to face the future. Lord Howell, the foreign minister, used a BP briefing on future energy trends to express the coalition's 'great admiration' for the share swap with Rosneft, which he argued would allow it to take advantage of a changing business landscape. Pictured, an aerial view of Rosneft's Vankor oil field in eastern Siberia Photograph: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

Closer to home, the Big Freeze that gripped most of Europe at the end of last year has cost insurance group RSA an extra £142m, with a surge in claims from people who suffered burst water pipes or crashed their car in the icy weather Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA