LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - British employers reduced the number of new permanent staff they hired through recruitment agencies by the most since mid 2020 last month due to concerns about the economic outlook, adding to signs that the market is becoming tougher for job seekers.
A gauge of permanent staff hiring by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation and accountants KPMG fell to 42.4, the lowest since the 34.3 in June 2020 when the country was in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The survey’s measure of temporary staff hiring, which often rises when employers are cautious about the outlook, in July showed the weakest growth in nine months - partly because more workers were looking for the security of permanent roles.
While starting pay for new permanent staff rose sharply by pre-pandemic standards, the rate of wage growth was the lowest since April 2021, REC said.
Monday’s survey chimed with other indicators showing the labour market is loosening, welcome news for the Bank of England which raised interest rates for the 14th meeting in a row to 5.25% last week and has been concerned about high wage growth.
Separate figures from accountants BDO showed rising interest rates, tough trading conditions and weak demand hit hiring intentions and business confidence across services and manufacturing sectors.
Yeah, like, the US should stop producing so many guns and do something about school shootings and start feeding their poor and homeless. I’ve read about Atlanta I think and there are giant camps of homeless people living in tents. Utterly disgusting.
A North Korean soldier runs towards battle. The hunger pains were dampened by the daily meth ration, but that wore off an hour ago, and he is hungry. No matter, he needs to fight. He opens his pack and struggles with the solid oak ornate bipod the Great Leader ordered deployed with the troops. As he lifts it free, he passes out. His last thoughts were how the food rations were thrown out to make room for this insane bipod
Ukraine is justified to raze the city to the ground if they so choose. It’s being occupied and used for cover by an enemy that is raping, kidnapping, and torturing their citizens. Ideally this would cause 0 casualties to Ukrainian civilians, but that’s unrealistic, so every civilian death attributed to Ukrainian shelling on Russian forces is the fault of Russian occupation in my opinion.
WARSAW, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Polish pipeline operator PERN said it had halted pumping through a section of the Druzhba pipeline, which carries oil from Russia to Europe, after detecting a leak in central Poland on Saturday, but it expects flows can be resumed on Tuesday.
There was no indication as to the cause of the leak, which follows a series of attacks on pipelines carrying Russian oil and gas since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
PERN did not say what the impact on supply to Germany was but a spokesperson for the federal Economy Ministry in Berlin said: "We are in contact with the operators of the East German refineries.
PERN said the second line was operating normally and there was no health threat to local residents, adding that the company was investigating the cause of the leak.
It said supply to Polish refineries was not impacted and that it was in contact with German partners receiving oil through the pipeline.
Ukraine and Western leaders have denied any responsibility for the attacks, calling them an act of sabotage that they are investigating.
Rescue operations on Saturday south of Lampedusa were “complex”, the coastguard said, confirming media reports that the two sunken migrant boats had probably set off from Sfax, a hot spot for Tunisia’s migration crisis.
Provincial police chief Emanuele Ricifari was quoted by local news website Agrigento Notizie as saying that whoever allowed the migrants to sail in such bad weather “is a crazy criminal with no scruples”.
On Sunday, mountain rescuers were deployed to pick up 20 migrants stuck on a cliff since late on Friday, when their boat hit rocks on arrival in Lampedusa, local media said.
Meanwhile, NGO group Open Arms wrote on social media site X that it had begun disembarking 195 rescued migrants in the southern Italian port of Brindisi, after more than two days of sailing in rough seas.
Italy’s right-wing government has a policy of assigning far-away ports to charity ships, rather than letting them disembark migrants in Lampedusa or Sicily, with the aim of spreading arrivals across the country.
NGOs say this increases their navigation costs, prolongs the misery of survivors, and reduces the amount of time charity ships can patrol areas of the Mediterranean where shipwrecks are more common.
It wouldn’t surprise me if artillery barrage had fallen on unintended targets. There is plenty of artillery that is simply not all that accurate. The important question here is: What would Ukraine have to gain from attacking that university? It’s their city, and it’s not like the Russians are going to be conducting cutting edge research at a civil building some ~300 kms away from the battlefield.
SEOUL, Aug 6 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has instructed factories making missile engines, artillery and other weapons to boost capacity as an important part of bolstering the country’s defence capabilities, state media said on Sunday.
Kim’s inspections from Thursday to Saturday included the production of engines for strategic cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as shells for super large-calibre multiple-rocket launchers and transporter-erector-launchers, said state news agency KCNA.
Kim cited improved precision processing and modernised automation in the production of large-calibre multiple-rocket launcher shells, KCNA said.
Photos showed Kim firing different types of assault rifles, with fiery blasts coming off the muzzle as he took aim at a target that was out of frame.
Cheong Seong-chang, an expert on North Korea’s political strategy at the Sejong Institute near Seoul, said Kim is likely focussed on modernisation and technical innovation of weapons that will help with the export of arms to Russia.
Marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War on July 27, Pyongyang held a major military parade displaying its newest nuclear-capable missiles and attack and spy drones, with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and a senior Chinese official joining Kim in the reviewing stand.
I’m pretty sure if we didn’t have nuclear weapons at all generally, we’d be in a world war right now or a continent wide war at the very least so in that sense so far they have functioned as a deterrent. Whether that’s any consolation for Ukranians is doubtful
reuters.com
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