More mixed signals on the economy mean uncertainty for UK businesses We finished 2023 with arguments raging on whether the UK was already in a shallow recession or might end up in one early this year. Now we have another batch of confusing signals. The respected EY Item Club have just upgraded their GDP growth forecast for 2024 to 0.9%
Near the top of the list of worries that keep many manufacturing bosses awake at night is hiring and retaining the right talent for an industry being overwhelmed by helter skelter technological change. Recruiting enough people was already a problem in a tight labour market, but the emphasis is increasingly moving away from the number to getting hold of staff
A driver shortage in the trucking industry is nothing new. From the very start, the job has been seen as an unattractive option with its long and anti-social hours, primitive working (and living) conditions and poor job satisfaction. The current statistics for road haulage drivers There are just over 400,000 registered HGV vehicles according to the Road Haulage Association (RHA),
Last month’s Autumn Statement was heavily focused on boosting the UK’s poor level of business investment, rightly identifying that without much higher investment, the productivity improvements required to restore the economy to meaningful growth will be unachievable. The scale of the problem The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has confirmed that real-term business investment in the UK was still at a
In this month’s business overview, we take a closer look at the Autumn Statement and consider its real impact on business investment It’s a well-worn joke that asking two experts about the economy is likely to get you at least three opinions or that if you laid all the world’s economists end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.
Our analysis of the latest published accounts of the travel facilitation sub-sector of the wider travel and tourism industry in the UK formed the main basis of our recent market sector report on travel. Our report showed a picture of cautious optimism, but some clear weaknesses in the overall finances of the sub-sector. A deeper dive beyond those financial weaknesses
