BT Holding Talks on New Mobile Venture
It has been reported that BT is considering a return to the mobile phone market through a possible joint venture with T-mobile and 3.
A Sunday newspaper said informal talks had taken place between the three parties over branding, costs and revenue. It said the discussion were at an early stage as the company of BT looked at possible ways to cash in on the migration of Internet services to mobile devices.
Bank of England’s Credit Scheme
This afternoon, the Bank of England and the Treasury officially fired the starting gun on a £50 billion scheme, which is aimed at boosting the flow of credit in the economy.
It has been confirmed that next week, Bank of England will set out the framework in which its planned Asset Purchase Facility will operate. These news follow last week’s fresh package of proposals which is aimed at reviving economic activity and taking UK closer to effectively printing money. The policy is very similar to the ones undertaken by the Federal Reserve of US and the Bank of Japan in the last few months.
An immediate rise in gilt yields was sparked the news, with two-year yields rising by 3.3 basis points to 1.51%, five-year yields by 5.3 basis points to 2.887% and 10-year yields by 8.5 basis points to 3.729%.
Asda and BSkyB Create Jobs
Today, the struggling UK economy obtained a boost as two big companies just announced the creation of 8000 jobs to defy gloom. Asda promised 7000 new jobs in 2009, targeting the long-term jobless; while BskyB is preparing to add 1000 more jobs since it prepares for the rollout of its high-definition television service.
UK is experiencing one of its darkest period of the maket downturn this week with more than 4000 jobs cut in one day, including 2500 by Corus, which is the nation’s largest steelmaker. According to the forecast of economicsts, the unemployment is going to hit bewildering three million by the end of the year. These new jobs will provide rare good news for the nation’s market downturn.
Repossessions Double in a Year
According to the data from Financial Services Authority, as rising household bills and the squeeze on lending took their toll on struggling borrowers, the figures of homeowners being repossessed almost doubled in 12 months to the end of last September.
FSA announced that the figure of homeowners falling into arrears has jumped by 10% in the third quarter of last year to 60000 cases. According to FSA’s data, 13161 properties were taken into possession by lenders in the third quarter last year. It is a 92% increase on the same period of the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of borrowers falling behind on mortgage repayments has increased sharply. With the borrowers increasingly struggling to clear arrears, the total number of households behind with their repayments increased by 10% over the quarter to 340000.
These figures paint a grimmer picture of the glooming situation in the market sector of housing.
Job Cut at Home Delivery Network and Atkins
Home Delivery Network is a parcel carrier that used to be part of Littlewoods, and the design and engineering group Atkins. It is the UK’s largest home delivery and collection service, 59 parcel depots operating across the nation.
However, these days, nearly 1000 people are facing the risk of losing their jobs at the company. On the day that UK officially entered recession, a reorganisation of Home Delivery Network put up to 686 jobs at risk. Atkins is to slash up to 260 staff in its UK design arm. Home Delivery Network’s decision to shut depots would have a “devastating effect” on workers and their families.
Optimistic Jobhunters More Likely to Succeed
The unemploy number in the UK edges closer to 2 million. It’s hard time for people to find a desirable position.
According to research by the Guardian and recruitment advertising agency Barkers, the optimistic jobseekers, who think positively, would enjoy more success in landing a new position than pessimists. The survey of more than 3000 jobseekers suggests that positive thinking, pro-activity and decisiveness are the key factors that differentiate the successful candidates from the rest.
The successful jobhunters are more likely to register for job alerts and upload their CVs on job sites and they are 60% more likely to describe themselves as optimistic about finding the role they wanted than the less successful group.
Eurozone Facing Breaking Point
With the consequences of credit crisis continue influence various kinds of business, at the beginning of 2009, we all want to know what lies ahead for the world economy and financial markets?
According to some critisism, the event that genuinely changed the world in 2008 was not the credit crunch but the catastrophic interaction of governmental and managerial incompetence that led to the collapse of big financial institutions across America, Britain and Europe, including Fannie Mae and Lehman Brothers. The financial crisis was said to be only what triggered the sudden implosion of economic activity around the world. So, it was a limited and manageable problem in one part of the market and banking sector. However, it suddenly went out of control and transmogrified into the worst financial crisis that the world had ever seen.
Some analysts said that personal leadership matters in economic crises, just as it does in revolutions and wars. Great leadership could change the bad situation. For example, Paul Volcker’s arrival at the Federal Reserve Board ended the inflationary crises of the 1970s and changed economic history.
However, it seems that today’s world is lack of such great leaders to deal with the recent long-lasting market downturn. Some people even think that the worsen economic condition is largely due to the Bush Administration’s ideological tunnel-vision. If the analysis is even partly right, the most important thing in 2009 should be replacing the worst President and worst Treasury Secretary in US history with individuals better qualified to do these jobs. It seems reasonable to expect, therefore, that conditions in the world economy will change gradually for the better after the Obama Administration came. Though the economy in the US will certainly suffer another few months of severe contraction and job cut, signs of recovery could start to appear in the property and financial sector by the early summer.
The real US economy should rebound fairly sharply. As a result, the dollar is going to be hard currency. For the rest of the world, a strong-dollar recovery in US would obviously do good for business and consumer confidence. But, there is a downside risk, especially in the eurozone, and also in the UK. There could be a tardy and muddled policy response from governments and central banks outside the US.
It’s hoped that the economic conditions in the UK should improve significantly by the middle of 2009 and the focus of global economic troubles is likely to shift from UK and US to continental Europe, with the unresponsive central banks, the overvalued currency and the squabbling politicians. If 2008 was the year in which the Anglo-Saxon economic model was tested to destruction, it may well be the turn of the European single-currency zone in 2009.
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