Financial news

• ‘It’s never going to happen’: three in five Australian renters expect to never own a home as steep rents hit

  11-11-2024 15:00 via theguardian.com
  Nation of homeowners is about ‘to flip’ to having more people renting, which presents policy challenges, researchers sayFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastKyle Ward wants to own a home. He and his wife have been saving hard, living in a cheap rental in Ipswich, south-east Queensland, for three years. Paying $365 rent a week, they were saving everything they could.Ward, 36, earns $68,000 a year and his wife,
  
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• Hybrid working much more likely if staff have a degree, says ONS

  11-11-2024 14:31 via theguardian.com
  
  Official figures show ability to work from home differs greatly across age, job type and educationBusiness live – latest updatesWorkers with degree-level education are 10 times more likely to have a hybrid working arrangement than those with no qualifications, according to official figures that suggest a societal divide has formed since the first Covid lockdowns.Almost five years since the start of the pandemic, the Office for National Statistics said hybrid working – part travelling
  
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• Direct Line to axe about 550 jobs as part of £50m cost-cutting drive

  11-11-2024 13:41 via theguardian.com
  Company to shed about 6% of its workforce of 9,000 as it loses car insurance customersBusiness live – latest updatesDirect Line is to axe about 550 jobs as part of a cost-cutting drive at the insurance company.The Kent-based company said that it was consulting on the jobs, which would represent about 6% of its total 9,000-person workforce, as part of drive to save £50m next year. Continue reading...
  
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• Police called after Le Creuset warehouse sale brings four-hour queues

  11-11-2024 12:23 via theguardian.com
  Hundreds turn up at Hampshire industrial estate to grab cut-price cast-iron cookwareOne hundred years after two Belgian industrialists first “cracked the code” to enamelling cast-iron and created the first Le Creuset cocotte, the highly covetable cookware brand continues to grace the middle-class kitchen.With prices reflecting its status, however, fans are always on the lookout for bargains for the colourful range, which is still made in the original foundry established in 1925 in th
  
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• UK interest rates are falling – but it’s not too late to find deals that pay

  11-11-2024 10:00 via theguardian.com
  
  The peak may have passed, but inflation-beating returns are still available if you’re quick. Here are the highest yielding and safest options The UK’s army of savers have been given a wake-up call to check their interest rate and to move their money as soon as possible if they are getting a raw deal.The Bank of England interest rate was cut from 5% to 4.75% on Thursday, while inflation is currently running at 1.7%. Continue reading...
  
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• I was knocked over at a Taylor Swift show and ended up with concussion

  11-11-2024 09:31 via theguardian.com
  
  While I was queueing at Wembley, I was struck by a falling barrier and hit my head on some concreteI was queueing to get into the Taylor Swift concert at Wembley Stadium in August when a gust of wind blew a metal barrier into me, knocking me over. I hit my head on concrete. Police and stewards asked me if I wanted a paramedic but, in my shock, I declined and went to the toilets to recover. I started to feel faint and in pain and was checked by first aiders and an onsite doctor who diagnosed conc
  
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• UK public sector pay awards to overtake private sector for first time in four years

  11-11-2024 07:01 via theguardian.com
  
  CIPD report says businesses face higher costs after tax rises in budget as public sector benefits from above-inflation pay risesPay awards for public sector workers in Britain are set to overtake the private sector for the first time in four years, according to a report, amid growing business alarm at the government’s tax plans.After October’s budget confirmed above-inflation pay rises for public sector workers and higher taxes on employment, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
  
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• Leading UK estate agent cuts its longer-term house price growth forecast

  11-11-2024 01:01
  
  Hamptons says ‘modest’ rises can be expected amid ‘dampening effect’ of higher interest rates overallExpectations that UK interest rates may stay higher for longer, as well as revenue-raising measures in the budget, have prompted a leading estate agent to cut its forecast for house price growth over the longer term.The revised forecast from Hamptons came days after Halifax and Nationwide banks said the annual rate of property price growth had slowed, with the former sayin
  
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• Great Britain ‘lags behind’ Europe on betting ad regulation, says gambling charity

  11-11-2024 01:01
  
  Public health concerns fuel restrictions across comparable markets, yet UK remains ‘lenient’Great Britain “lags behind” Europe on measures to restrict betting adverts, according to a report released days after official data showed a sharp increase in the number of children with a gambling problem.Restrictions on ads by bookmakers and casinos are increasingly becoming “the norm” across Europe in response to public health concerns, according to a report commissi
  
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• Extreme weather cost $2tn globally over past decade, report finds

  11-11-2024 01:01
  
  US suffered greatest economic losses, report commissioned by International Chamber of Commerce finds, followed by China and IndiaViolent weather cost the world $2tn over the past decade, a report has found, as diplomats descend on the Cop29 climate summit for a tense fight over finance.The analysis of 4,000 climate-related extreme weather events, from flash floods that wash away homes in an instant to slow-burning droughts that ruin farms over years, found economic damages hit $451bn across the
  
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