Pop-up City campsite: High-flying caravan spotted in the skies of St Paul’s October 4, 2021 A high-flying caravan has been spotted in the skies of London by St Paul’s Cathedral. The caravan was being carefully craned onto the roof terrace at One New Change to create a temporary pop-up campsite in the City. It was a PR stunt to highlight the boom in staycations and caravan sales during the Covid [...]
Morrisons’ chairman calls Christmas supply concerns ‘slightly overblown’ October 4, 2021 Morrisons’ chairman has downplayed concerns over the supermarket supply chain this Christmas. Andy Higginson said he was “not worried” about the challenges arising from a shortage of goods drivers and reports forecasting empty shelves this autumn, the BBC reported. The supermarket boss said problems in the supply chain were “well publicised” and “slightly overblown”. “Supply [...]
Aldi hiring for over 1,500 Christmas jobs October 4, 2021 Cut price supermarket Aldi is recruiting for more than 1,500 Christmas jobs this year. The retailer said it would keep all stores shut on Boxing Day to thank colleagues for their work during the pandemic – maintaining a decades-long tradition. Available roles will include those working on checkouts, replenishing stock and fulfilling orders made through [...]
UK hospitality crisis: 75 per cent of pubs and restaurants are hiking pay to attract new staff October 4, 2021 As a worker shortage continues to hamper the sector’s recovery, three quarters of pub and restaurant bosses say they are increasing pay to attract staff. One in six jobs currently lies vacant, and 96 per cent of business leaders were seeing staffing shortages for some roles, according to a survey of 200 senior executives from [...]
UK businesses’ research and development investments climb to record £47bn October 4, 2021 The amount spent by UK businesses on research and development has jumped 15 per cent to £47bn last year, a record high and up from £41bn the year before, according to new data shared with City PM this morning. says UHY Hacker Young, the national accountancy group. The figures show that UK businesses also claimed [...]
Cake Box to open 20 new stores as Uber Eats and Deliveroo orders double sales October 4, 2021 Cake Box said this morning that its sales nearly almost doubled for the past six months amid a strong recovery in customer demand. The high street cream cake retailer said it was buoyed by its continued expansion, opening 20 new franchise sites over the six months to September, to bring it to a total of [...]
Shortages saga: A third of UK mid-size firms forced to slim down offerings October 4, 2021 With the UK’s supply chains riddled with labour shortages and continued Covid-19-related hang-ups, a third of mid-size firms have been forced to reduce their offering. More than 34 per cent of businesses already trimmed their product lines and services by mid-September – before the fuel crisis had gripped the nation, according to accountancy firm BDO. [...]
UK travel rules are changing from today as traffic light system is scrapped October 4, 2021 Travel rules are changing significantly today, with the UK’s traffic light system involving green, amber and red lists being scrapped, with locations categorised as either on the red list or not. It comes amid reports the number of countries on the red list will be slashed to nine from 54 later in the week, with [...]
Hospitality staff shortages: One in six jobs currently vacant October 4, 2021 One in six hospitality jobs are currently vacant while the government doubles down on not relaxing immigration rules to ease labour shortages. The Prime Minister said on Sunday that he would not “pull the lever” of more immigration in the short-term to stop lorry driver shortages while ministers have ruled out extra visas for restaurants. [...]
Supermarkets bleed sales thanks to food shortages October 3, 2021 The country’s largest supermarkets have lost out on more than £2bn sales this year so far thanks to food shortages. Leading retailers – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – lost out on sales during the first nine months of the year, according to data shared with trade magazine The Grocer. The sector has been hit [...]