4 Day Week

 

Would you fancy a 4 day week on a 5 day salary? But for a four-day week on full pay to work across the economy, employers will need to see productivity gains. Workers will need to create the services and products in four days that they were creating in five to make enough money to pay a full week's wages. That kind of productivity growth has proved an intractable challenge for the UK economy. It has fallen behind many other rich nations in the amount of value created per worker in recent years, with competing explanations as to why and how that might be fixed. While most of the companies taking part said they were happy with productivity and performance outcomes, only 23 provided financial data covering revenues, and that showed revenue had broadly stayed the same over the six months of the trial. But of the 61 companies that took part, 56 said they would continue with the four-day week, at least for now, of whom 18 said the policy was a permanent change.

4 Day Week

Veg Shortage

Sales of some fruit and vegetables have been limited by most of the country's largest supermarkets, Tesco, Asda, Aldi and Morrisons. The UK government has said it is largely down to bad weather in Europe and Africa. There is also the impact high electricity prices are having on produce grown in greenhouses in the UK and the Netherlands. Tomatoes and peppers seem to be the worst affected but it's unclear whether this is simply because they are popular. In the winter months the UK imports around 95% of its tomatoes and 90% of its lettuces, most of them from Spain and north Africa, according to trade group the British Retail Consortium (BRC). But southern Spain has been suffering unusually cold weather and in Morocco crop yields have been affected by floods, while storms have caused ferries to be delayed or cancelled. It led to Morocco barring exports of tomatoes, onions and potatoes to West African countries earlier this month as it tried to protect exports to Europe. The shortages are only expected to last "a few weeks" until the UK growing season begins and supermarkets find alternative sources of supply, according to the BRC.

Veg Shortage

Lilt Brand Scrapped

 

The soft drink brand Lilt - famously advertised for its "totally tropical taste" - is being scrapped after 50 years and rebranded. From Tuesday it will be known as Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit, according to its owner the Coca Cola Company. The firm stressed the drink's taste and ingredients would not change. But fans - many of whom appeared to associate Lilt with memories of their youth - took to social media to express their dismay. Launched in 1975, Lilt became a household name in the UK partly because of its advertising. One television ad in the late 1980s featured the "Lilt Man", a parody of a milkman, delivering Lilt in a "Lilt float" on a Caribbean beach. Coca Cola, which owns a host of different soft drink brands around the world, said Lilt would no longer be sold under its current branding from 14 February, while Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit bottles and cans were gradually rolled out across the UK.

Goodbye Lilt

Bard Day for Google

Google is searching for ways to reassure people that it is still out in front in the race for the best artificial intelligence technology. And so far, the internet giant seems to be coming up with the wrong answer. An advert designed to show off its new AI bot, showed it answering a query incorrectly. Shares in parent company Alphabet sank more than 7% on Wednesday, knocking $100bn (£82bn) off the firm's market value. In the promotion for the bot, known as Bard, which was released on Twitter on Monday, the bot was asked about what to tell a nine-year-old about discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope. It offered the response that the telescope was the first to take pictures of a planet outside the earth's solar system, when in fact that milestone was claimed by the European Very Large Telescope in 2004 - a mistake quickly noted by astronomers on Twitter. Google has been under pressure since late last year, when Microsoft-backed OpenAI unveiled new ChatGPT software. It quickly became a viral hit for its facility in passing business school exams, composing song lyrics and answering other questions. Microsoft this week said a new version of its Bing search engine, which has lagged Google for years, would use the ChatGPT technology in an even more advanced form.

Bard

Workers Fall into Chocolate

US workplace safety regulators have fined a Pennsylvania factory after two workers fell into a vat of chocolate and had to be rescued. The Mars Wrigley factory in the city of Elizabethtown was fined more than $14,500 (£12,000) by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The workers were contractors that did not work full-time for the factory. The incident happened in June 2022. A hole had to be cut into the bottom of the partly-full tank to get them out. More than two dozen rescuers responded, and one worker was transported to hospital by helicopter, according to local reports. The regulator's report labelled the incident "serious". It says the workers were hired to clean tanks, and were not provided with proper safety training. It noted that the workers fell into a batching tank - a tank used to mix ingredients - for Dove chocolate, a brand sold in the US. In the UK and elsewhere, Dove is sold as Galaxy.

Chocolate Safety

HSBC New Uniform

HSBC has become the latest big company to announce a shift to more casual uniforms for 4,000 branch staff. The new range includes jumpsuits and "menopause-friendly" garments for women, ethnic-wear, including tunics and hijabs, and chinos and jeans. Last month, British Airways unveiled its first new uniform for 20 years, including a jumpsuit for female ground staff and cabin crew.HSBC is to close 114 more UK branches from April, with about 100 jobs going. The bank said the uniform re-design mirrored the "more casual new look of the banks' branches". HSBC UK's director of distribution, Jackie Uhi, said the days of "bowler-hatted bankers and intimidating bank branches with rows of screens" was over. HSBC's said its new uniforms, which took two years to develop, were its "most sustainable" yet. They are made from recycled polyester, dissolving plastic, ocean recovered plastic and sustainable cotton.

HSBC Uniform 

Apple Sales Drop

Apple sales dropped at the end of 2022 as shoppers squeezed by the rising cost of living cut back their purchases. Sales at the iPhone giant fell 5% in the three months to December compared with the same period in 2021. It was the biggest decline since 2019 and worse than expected. The update came as many firms warn about a sharp economic slowdown, especially in the tech sector which boomed during the pandemic. Apple boss Tim Cook said the firm was navigating a "challenging environment". He blamed the sales decline on supply shortages due to Covid-19 disruption in China - where its phones are manufactured - and a strong dollar, as well as wider economic weakness stemming from rising prices, the war in Ukraine and lingering effects from the pandemic. Apple said the decline in sales occurred throughout the world and hit most of its products. Sales of its popular iPhones were down more than 8%, and sales of Mac computers dropped 29%.

Apple Sales Fall

Tesco Buys Paperchase

Tesco has bought the brand and intellectual property of High Street stationery chain Paperchase, hours after it fell into administration. But the grocer has not acquired the chain's 106 shops in the UK and Ireland, leaving the future of 820 staff in doubt. Paperchase's administrators, Begbies Traynor, said 75 workers at its head office have been made redundant. All stores will remain open for now with two weeks to redeem gift cards. Tesco will now sell the stationer's goods in its stores across the UK. It follows a challenging few years for Paperchase which has been hit recently by rising costs and falling sales. The business also has stores in train stations, which have suffered from reduced footfall due to more people now working from home. Paperchase, which was founded in 1968, went through a form of insolvency proceedings four years ago to cut stores and reduce costs. In a separate announcement on Tuesday, Tesco said more than 2,000 roles were set to go across its business as it announced more changes to the way it runs its shops.

Tesco buy Papeschase

Porsche Price Error

Potential car buyers in China have found that an online advert for a luxury sports car was just too good to be true. A Porsche dealership in the the city of Yinchuan listed the brand new vehicle for 124,000 yuan ($18,300, £15,000). That is just a fraction of what it should have been. The Panamera has a starting price of $148,000. The promotion attracted hundreds of would-be buyers who rushed to secure what appeared to be a bargain. A spokesperson for the German car maker told the BBC that the promotion "contained a serious mistake in the listed retail price", which was taken down immediately. The dealership also contacted "every bidder individually and explained the situation with apology". The incorrect information was posted on 30 January and customers who paid the 911 yuan reservation fee have been refunded, Porsche said. Porsche started selling cars in mainland China more than 20 years ago. In recent years the company expanded its footprint in the world's second largest economy as it opened new dealerships. The country is now Porsche's largest single market globally, with sales totalling $6.2bn in the first six months of last year.

Porsche Price