8th December
Feb 23rd, 2009 by ctoop
Governments Skills Secretary John Denham, has urged the newly jobless to return to university and learn new skills or retrain in their field. This is because they feel that places such as JobCentres will not be able to find skilled professionals with work as JobCentres are for lower skilled workers. John Denham wants universities to use the money they will gain from the tax cuts to offer MA or MBA qualifications to those who have lost their jobs.
House prices are still falling nationwide however there is now also good news for those looking to buy or sell, mortgages are once again easier to find so sales are now increasing. Although an average of 17% of the house price is needed today to secure a mortgage, it means that the housing market is slowly bouncing back and that it is a good time to buy if you can afford it, especially for first time buyers. This is because you will not be losing money on a house you already own and you will be able to buy a house at a reasonable price.
Shopping channel group Ideal Shopping has announced that trading in November is much less than predicted and therefore, that its losses for the year will also be much more than expected. In November sales were down 17% on last year and the losses for the year are expected to now be at £4m as opposed to the £700,000 which had originally be forecast. To account for this the company is cutting 15% of its permanent workforce, amounting to 70 jobs and also most of its temporary staff by the end of this year. This slump in sales shows how people are more careful with what they spend their money on.
Goldman Sachs is expected this week to report a loss for the forth quarter tomorrow. This means that for a year the company has not improved on its trading of last year. The loss that they could be seeing is as much as £1.35bn and is caused by write-downs on its investments and a fall in its investment banking, sales and trading. In the first three quarters the company’s revenue dropped by 33% from the previous year, investment banking dropped by 26% and trading revenue fell by 45%. The company has tried to reduce such losses next year by cutting its workforce by 10%. The fear is that if one company in the sector is experiencing trouble, the likelihood is that others will also be experiencing the same problems.
