It seems the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King has seen his pay increase quite substantially despite the economic downturn and the problems the UK banks have caused for the UK economy. King saw a 2.5% increase in his wages which now take him to three hundred and six thousand pounds a year.

It’s reported that Mervyn King has refused to accept anymore wage rises for the next two coming years and this was a personal decision not on too encourage other city bankers to take on. Saying that city pay is becoming more and more controversial day by day.

Sir Leahy the UK’s most influential retailers has bagged a whooping thirteen and half million pounds due the success of supermarket giant Tesco’s in the last year. Sir Leahy was not the only person to bag money either the success of Tesco saw members of staff an average of about £490 extra a year aswell.

It seems Sir Leahy will also have a great retirement with a pension fund of nearly fifteen million pounds. Tesco has nearly a third of the supermarket industry in the UK and is continuing to expand they are easily fighting off competitors like Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrison. Not to forget Tesco’s also has its fingers in a number of other pies adding to its success.

Struggling Kingfisher Group which houses brands like B&Q, Castorama, Brico Depot and Screwfix are hoping that the upcoming world cup competition will encourage consumers to spend. They are hoping that the world cup will take away the blues around the doom and gloom of rising taxes and bad weather. This is a genuine hope for the company as in the good weather this may encourage more home improvements and the world cup may encourage more gardening or other hobbies.

The group of companies has been feeling the difficult times recently due to the bad weather and the economic downturn. Hopefully they will be right and the world cup will help them in trade.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is cutting nearly 500 jobs in the UK. Jobs are being cut in its wealth management business with most jobs being lost at Queen banker Coutts and Co. These job cut will take place over the coming three years bringing RBS job cuts figure to over the twenty thousand mark. Royal Bank of Scotland had to be bailed out by the tax payer after major problems in the UK recession.

The bank claims that these cuts are necessary to fund the future of the business as it seems to be more of a cost cutting exercise than anything else.

The average UK House price is now 10 per cent below the peak reached in 2007. Nationwide building society has stated that prices have risen 0.5% in the last month or so. The average cost of a home is now around one hundred and seventy thousand pounds, this is the highest since July 2008. Despite the recession prices are continually rising and this is down to the lack of houses and demand being very high at the moment.

This also goes for rental properties there is a huge demand for rental properties but not enough properties to go round. This is difficult time for the UK.

The newly announced application from Google to take on turn by turn navigation created a quick response from the market. Gps nav companies have seen their share prices in average of 18%.

The new app targeted at mobile users is certainly a good improvement to Google Map, and like a lot of Google services will be free.

The first videos of the navigation software in action are actually very impressive and we don’t see anyone going for a more dedicated solution if the Gps nav companies don’t up the game.

The point for Google is of course to get more interest for its Phone OS Android, which is already getting more and more market share and saved a few companies like Motorola.

While everything seems to tell us the worst of the recession is over we are still not seeing any major improvement of consumer spending and unemployment.

The situation could well set a bleak Christmas period of the likes of last year, when 14 major retailers went into administration.

The Christmas period is of course the most profitable for many businesses and if we face the same situation as last year we might well see some more retailers closing down in our shopping centres.

The online retail sector seems to be less affected by lower spending which might force some shop to look into expending their online presence to overcome this difficult time.

M & S, Marks and Spencers, the cloth and food retailer has found itself still with falling sales due to a struggling economy and general business errors however the decline is the smallest the company has seen in 2 years. M & S has rebranded itself numerous times to try and regain it’s market share compared to other retailers such as Tesco in attempt to get back on track and avoid employee lay offs.

The firm that empathsises quality in it’s products seems to be making a slow and steady come back after a troubling couple of years.

It seems another France Telecom worker has commited suicide this week meaning that 24 employees have recently taken their lives.

In notes to their families and friends, the problem seems to lie with France Telecoms working environment with pressures involved that are intolerable and ultimately all too much for some.

In a company where many people are being victims of staff cuts, the pressures of having extra work for the same pay can lead to increased stress with in the environment.

One member of France Telecom stabbed himself in the stomach after being told he was “good for nothing”, fortently for himself he survived the ordeal after being rushed to hospital.

Are times this tough for you at work? Let us know!

It has emerged today that the ONS, Office of National Statistics, has announced that the predicted shrink in economy for the second quarter was actually a lot less than expected. The ONS predicted a 2.2% contraction but the actual results tell a story of a 0.6% contraction.

This is good news for the economy and suggests a quicker recovery than previously thought.

The manafacturing sector contracted by 0.1% in the second quarter, which compared to to the first three months of the year is a good sign for times ahead. The first three months of the year saw a contraction of 5.4% which still is a record loss.