Action urged over energy strikes

The government is coming under increasing pressure to intervene in the growing industrial unrest over imported labour affecting oil and energy plants.

Hundreds of UK workers have gone on “sympathy strikes” to support a walkout by energy workers in Lincolnshire angry at the use of foreign workers. Read more

Small companies ’shedding staff’

Small and medium-sized manufacturing companies are shedding staff at the fastest rate since the early 1990s, according to new research from the CBI.

Employment, new orders and output all fell sharply in the final three months of 2008 as demand for goods from UK firms fell as the recession took hold. Read more

Rail ticket machine upgrade call

By Susannah Streeter
Business reporter, BBC News

There are calls for ticket machines at stations to be improved because passengers are often unable to access the cheapest fares.

BBC research suggests that passengers can save almost 40% on some routes if they buy split tickets, or two separate fares for the same journey. Read more

Wall Street suffers worst January

Wall Street has suffered its worst January on record as a barrage of bad US economic data continues to shake investors‘ confidence.

The Dow Jones Index ended the month down 8.8% in what some analysts see as a bad omen for the year ahead. Read more

Japan’s NEC to lose 20,000 jobs

Japanese electronics giant NEC has announced that it will be cutting 20,000 jobs worldwide by March 2010.

The company also made a loss of 130.8bn yen ($1.45bn) in the final quarter of 2008 and forecast a loss for the full financial year. Read more

US economic output falls sharply

US economic output fell 3.8% in the last three months of 2008, the worst quarterly contraction in more than 26 years, official figures have shown.

Much steeper than the 0.5% fall between August and October, it is also the first time the US has seen consecutive quarterly economic declines since 2001. Read more

Hitachi to cut up to 7,000 jobs

Hitachi is to cut up to 7,000 jobs, as it warned it expects to make an annual loss of 700bn yen ($7.8bn; £5.5bn) because of a big fall in global sales.

Hitachi said the job cuts would be made globally across its car equipment and electronics divisions. Read more

Honda’s four-month break to begin

Honda is to close its UK base for four months after Friday’s shifts are over.

The halt will affect just over 3,000 of the 4,000 employees, who will receive their full basic pay for the first two months, but around 60% thereafter. Read more

Japan production fall ’serious’

Japan’s Economics Minister Kaoru Yosano has described the country’s falling production rate as “very serious”.

Japan’s industrial output decreased by almost 10% in December compared with the previous month. Read more

New urgency

By Steve Schifferes
Economics reporter, BBC News

It has been one year since many African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations balked at signing a new trade deal with the EU. Now, with world trade talks stalled and the world economy in crisis, there is a new push to complete the deal.

On Tuesday the new EU trade commissioner, Baroness Ashton, held informal talks with representatives of the EU’s former colonies under the auspices of the Commonwealth Secretariat to try and make progress. Read more

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