Business News Round Up (15/12/2022)
Four in five UK business leaders believe flexible working is critical to success, research finds
Four in five (82 per cent) employers believe offering employees flexibility in where and when they work is essential in attracting and retaining talent to meet future business needs, new research has found. DocuSign’s survey of 450 business decision makers from across all sectors found that three quarters (75 per cent) of respondents think offering flexibility delivers a competitive advantage, with four in five stating it is critical to their future success. In the survey more than half of business leaders (56 per cent) said recruitment and talent were their current main priorities, which, Gary Cookson, director of Epic HR, explained means organisations should consider how to better use flexibility to meet hiring needs. “Flexible working, among other things, is often cited as one of the benefits people are looking for from an employer, so they must consider anything and everything they can to stand out and be competitive within the labour market,” he said. The government recently announced new legislation that will give employees the right to ask for flexible working from day one, rather than having to wait 26 weeks.
Government urged to build Manchester innovation district in £14.5bn investment
Manchester should be part of a £14.5bn government investment in innovation zones to kick-start a new economy, says urban policy think tank Centre for Cities. It says Whitehall should seize the opportunities of Manchester’s growing technology sector by investing to build a new innovation district in the city, along with Birmingham and Glasgow over a 10-year period. As part of last month’s Autumn Statement, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced plans to make Britain the “world’s next Silicon Valley” with ambitions to “build clusters for new growth industries”. In a report published in partnership with HSBC UK today (December 14), entitled ‘At the Frontier: The geography of the UK’s new economy’, Centre for Cities calls on the Government to combine these ambitions with the levelling up agenda and prioritise building these high-tech clusters in Manchester, Birmingham, and Glasgow – the three cities initially chosen as ‘innovation accelerators’ in last February’s Levelling Up White Paper. Ministers should properly fund these plans by creating a £14.5bn growth package for these three cities over 10 years, the report says. This could mostly be made up of existing earmarked spending and would go towards funding infrastructure upgrades, improving public transport, and boosting research and development (R&D) to help make each place more attractive to emerging advanced tech industries.
UK CPI falls to 10.7% as industry mulls future trajectory
UK Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) fell from October’s 41-year high to 10.7% over the 12 months to November, according to the latest set of data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The largest downward contributors to the drop in inflation came from transport, particularly motor fuels, which was partially offset by rising prices in restaurants, cafes, and pubs. The fall was larger than expected after the Bank of England had forecast a 10.9% figure for November. The main debate among industry commentators is now whether October’s 11.1% figure was the ceiling, following a year in which inflation has climbed to levels last seen in the 1980s. James Lynch, Aegon Asset Management fixed income investment manager, said: “[The CPI drop] most likely confirms that October 2022 was the peak in inflation. We would expect inflation in the UK to continue to trend lower in 2023 as demand in the economy falls, the supply chain difficulties post-Covid are fading away, and the energy prices will not be rising at the same rate of change as they did in 2022.”
68% of letting agents report increase in notices to sell due to temporary measures
PropertyMark, the leading industry body for estate and letting agents reveals research on the impacts being felt by letting agents and their landlords in the private rented sector in Scotland. Data suggests that landlords were already leaving the sector before the emergency legislation came into force. In 2016, the Scottish Household Survey showed that the PRS accounted for 15 per cent of households in the country, with circa 370,000 households. In 2018, 340,000 households were recorded. Feedback from letting agents in Scotland found 85 per cent of agents had landlords who had expressed a wish to withdraw from the private rented sector and sell their properties and perhaps more worryingly, 68 per cent of agents have already seen an increase in notices to sell due to the temporary measures. 83 per cent of those that PropertyMark surveyed stated that they would be inclined to increase rents as a result of the Act as landlords want to have reassurance that they can cover any rental loss as well as rising cost of maintenance and repairs, utilities, and mortgage interest hikes.