January, 2023

• 20 January

  Record rise in air fares for UK holidaymakers

  

    Bloomberg British holidaymakers seeking a winter getaway have been hit by the fastest increase in air fares since records began as airlines warn passengers of an end to budget travel. Official data showed that air fares jumped 44.1% compared with a year earlier as carriers report strong demand for flights despite the cost-of-living crunch squeezing UK households. It marked ...

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• 20 January

  Unilever India’s profit beats estimates, hikes royalty payout

  

  Bloomberg Unilever Plc’s Indian unit reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as the declining prices of key raw materials, including palm oil, boosted the consumer goods giant. It also raised the royalty payout to its European parent. Mumbai-based Hindustan Unilever Ltd. posted a net income of 25.1 billion rupees ($309 million) for the quarter ended December 31, according to an exchange ...

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• 20 January

  Anti-Covid device comes too late for airlines as flyers shrug off virus

  

    Bloomberg A Covid-era invention that protects plane passengers from the virus with a curtain of fast-flowing air is proving redundant, underscoring how little travellers care about the risk of infection in the rush back to the skies. Washington-based Pexco Aerospace Inc. has spent the pandemic designing and manufacturing a device that clips onto air vents inside the aircraft. The ...

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• 20 January

  Burberry sees lackluster sales growth, hurt by China slump

    Bloomberg Burberry Group Plc showed lackluster sales growth last quarter as customers in China were kept at home first by strict pandemic controls and then, at the very end of the year, by a viral surge as the government loosened restrictions. Comparable store sales rose 1% in the quarter ended December 31, 2022, below the 1.4% gain analysts anticipated. ...

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• 20 January

  Amazon kills ‘smile’ charity program

    Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. is halting “AmazonSmile,” a decade-old charitable program that let customers pick a charity to receive a donation from the company equal to 0.5% of their purchases. The announcement, which coincided with a fresh round of layoffs that will affect 18,000 Amazon employees, showed how tech industry cost-cutting could ripple through the nonprofit world. The company, which ...

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• 20 January

  Half a million UK workers set for mass strike for higher pay

  

  Bloomberg Close to half a million workers are ready to strike on a single day as Britain faces an escalation of industrial action across a number of sectors. Unions representing civil servants, teachers, university staff and train drivers have said their members will walk out on Feb. 1 as part of demands for higher pay to cope with the worst ...

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• 20 January

  Biden’s climate plan is ‘dangerous’ says UK business secretary

  

    Bloomberg President Joe Biden’s plan to subsidize clean energy is “dangerous” and risks pushing the world toward protectionism, Britain’s Business Secretary Grant Shapps said, in the UK’s bluntest criticism to date of the US Inflation Reduction Act. European Union leaders say the US legislation will unfairly benefit American firms and violate World Trade Organization rules. To date, Prime Minister ...

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• 20 January

  Yellen woos Africa as US vies for influence with China, Russia

  

    Bloomberg US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, declaring that African can help shape the future of the global economy, will set out why the Biden administration intends to elevate its focus on the continent over the next two years in a speech she’s slated to deliver Friday in Dakar, Senegal. “The United States is committed to building on Africa’s significant ...

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• 20 January

  Prices for Swiss single family homes drop

    Bloomberg Prices for Swiss single family homes fell for the first time since before the pandemic, raising the prospect that a market that has boomed for decades may be turning. Transaction prices declined 0.18% in the final three months of 2022, data compiled by Zurich-based real-estate consulting firm Wuest Partner show. The last time they fell was in the ...

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• 20 January

  Australian jobs surprisingly fall, easing case for rate hike

  

    Bloomberg Australian employment unexpectedly fell last month while the jobless rate remained unchanged, sending the currency and bond yields lower as traders pared bets on a February interest-rate increase. Employers cut 14,600 roles in December — the first decline in five months — confounding expectations for a 25,000 increase, official data showed Thursday. Unemployment held at 3.5% after being ...

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