Business News Round Up (16/11/2021)
Most British bosses expect growth in 2022 but voice post-Brexit concerns over trade, survey finds
Four in five British bosses believe both the economy and their own businesses will improve in the next 12 months, a new report has found. Ipsos Mori’s annual ‘Captains of Industry’ survey, reported in the FT, found levels of optimism not since before the Brexit referendum in 2016. Most of the UK’s top executives are increasingly confident about growth despite worries over recruitment, Brexit, and the pandemic. More than 100 top executives were interviewed for the report. Economic uncertainty and the effects of the pandemic remain the biggest concerns, although less so than last year. However, many respondents were negative over the impact of the UK leaving the EU. Three-quarters fear the loss of trade with the EU will outweigh gains from new trade deals. Less than a fifth thought that the government was doing enough to help their businesses compete internationally. A fifth of bosses strongly disagreed that the government stood a good chance of improving the economy if given another term, and a quarter had no confidence in its post-pandemic economic recovery strategy.
Business leaders’ warning as Sturgeon ponders renewed Covid restrictions
Nicola Sturgeon is to reveal if further coronavirus restrictions – including an extension of Scotland’s vaccine passport scheme – are to be brought in to help combat rising numbers of infections. Business leaders, however, have claimed almost two thirds of firms are opposed to the measures being considered, fearing they could “place thousands of firms and jobs at risk”. A total of 65% of companies surveyed for Scottish Chambers of Commerce (SCC) were against vaccine passports being used more in the hospitality and leisure sectors, together with increased home working and greater use of face coverings. The poll, which almost 700 firms took part in, also found that 24% of businesses face “severe financial consequences” if vaccine passports and home-working measures are widened. The First Minister and her cabinet will consider if such further restrictions are necessary when they meet today, with Sturgeon to update Holyrood on their decisions in the afternoon. Speaking ahead of that, SCC chief executive Liz Cameron warned: “Any reintroduction of restrictions will act as a painful economic deterrent for businesses across Scotland. We urge ministers not to take a massive step backwards in our economic recovery from the pandemic which would place thousands of firms and jobs at risk.”
https://www.insider.co.uk/news/business-leaders-warning-sturgeon-ponders-25467744
Region now host to one-in-four of UK’s longevity companies
Following advances in digital development for ageing populations, Greater Manchester has mapped the innovation happening in the UK’s first age-friendly city. A new study which analysed the longevity and healthy ageing landscape of the city region, has found that one-in-four (24.8%) of the UK’s longevity companies now have Greater Manchester bases – spanning AgeTech, NeuroTech, Longevity FemTech, P4 Medicine and other organisations and specialist developers. The independent research was commissioned by MIDAS, Manchester’s inward investment agency, and identified a surge in longevity innovation, with 237 Greater Manchester-based companies now developing products, services, and tech to support older generations. Greater Manchester – which became the first UK city region recognised by the World Health Organisation as an age-friendly city back in 2010 – has rapidly developed its healthy ageing community over recent years. The research was led by Aging Analytics Agency, which focuses exclusively on the longevity industry, Geroscience, and the aging economy.
UK economy withstands end of jobs support, easing BoE worries
Britain’s job market withstood the end of the government’s furlough scheme last month, according to data which could ease lingering concerns at the Bank of England about the risks of raising interest rates from their pandemic low. Sterling strengthened as the number of staff on businesses’ payrolls in October rose to 0.8% above levels in February 2020, before the coronavirus pandemic hit, and increased by 160,000 on the month. The Bank of England has been watching closely in case unemployment rose after the job-protecting furlough scheme expired at the end of September. “Now that today’s labour market data shows that hurdle has been cleared, we think the Bank of England has the green light for interest rate lift-off at their December meeting,” Ambrose Crofton, a global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, said. The BoE’s next monetary policy announcement is scheduled for Dec. 16.