International News

  Bloomberg The US added close to half a million jobs in March and the unemployment rate fell by more than expected, highlighting a robust labour market that’s likely to support aggressive Federal Reserve tightening in the coming months. Nonfarm payrolls increased 431,000 last month after an upwardly revised 750,000 gain in February, a Labour Department report showed. The unemployment ...

Bloomberg European regulators are asking Microsoft Corp. partners and rivals for information related to a complaint made against the software maker alleging anti-competitive behavior in the cloud-computing services market. The European Commission in March circulated a questionnaire, seen by Bloomberg News, focusing on how Microsoft licenses its products. The questions may lead to a formal inquiry, and follows an antitrust ...

  Bloomberg A record number of UK companies expect to increase wages as the war in Ukraine deepens the cost of living crisis, a survey showed. The Lloyds Bank Business Barometer found that a half intended to boost average pay by at least 2% in the next 12 months. A fifth of businesses that have annual turnover of more than ...

  Bloomberg Italian inflation surged to the highest in three decades as energy prices continued to rise following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Prices increased 7% in March from a year earlier, statistics office Istat said. That’s the fastest pace since 1991. Rising prices and the ongoing conflict are impacting the economy with Finance Minister Daniele Franco saying last week that ...

  Bloomberg Brazil posted record monthly exports and imports in March on the back of a surge in global commodity prices fuelled by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Exports rose almost 20% from the same month a year ago to $29.1 billion, a record for the data series that goes back to 1959, the Economy Ministry reported. Imports increased ...

  Bloomberg The economic damage from the war in Ukraine is worsening across Europe as already-record inflation soars further and Germany faces a danger of recession because of its dependence on Russian energy. President Vladimir Putin’s invasion has sapped euro-area confidence and sent consumer-price expectations to their highest level since records began in 1985. In Spain, inflation surged by almost ...

  Bloomberg Argentina’s economy contracted in January as a surge in coronavirus cases due to the omicron variant weighed on industrial manufacturing. Economic activity in January falls 0.5% from the prior month, better than analysts’ median estimate for a 1% contraction. From a year ago, the economy expanded 5.4% in the first month of the year, according to government data. ...

  Bloomberg London beats Brighton and Oxford for the UK city with the highest overall employee satisfaction, according to a new survey. Belfast came in last. Glassdoor analysed over 300,000 employee reviews from across the country between January 2021 and February 2022, during height of pandemic. The capital won an average rating of 3.92, scoring high in career opportunities, culture ...

Bloomberg The European Union (EU) plans to ensure that products from handbags to laptops and mobile phones are more durable, in a bid to curb the environmental damage caused by their limited lifespans. Under the “Circular Economy Package” put forward by the European Commission on Wednesday, companies will have to show that the products they sell within the EU last ...

  Bloomberg US consumer confidence edged up in March, suggesting solid job growth offset Americans’ concerns over decades-high inflation that poses a risk to spending and growth. The Conference Board’s index increased to 107.2 from a downwardly revised 105.7 reading in February, which was the lowest in a year, according to the group’s report Tuesday. The median forecast in a ...