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.

World leaders have agreed to toughen up regulations this week as situations such as bankers bonuses continue to bother the nation.

Bonuses should be capped and not promised for number of years to help ease the problems faced by banks.

Other talks of the IMF and bias towards Western nations were hinted and countries such as China feel they are treated unfairly when the IMF figures are concerned.

Discussion of how much capital reserves are to be held at banks brought agreements and disagreements accross the board and provided a healthy debate amongst the 20 nations.

Virgin Media are currently listed on the NASDAQ stock market in the United States. Virgin soon intends to increase this by going for a secondary lsiting in the London Stock exchange.

The plans are to attract new investors to the company to allow them to grow and provide their media services to the UK.

Virgin Media currently provides homes with internet, tv and other media services such as on demand content. They amongst the biggest internet providers in the UK along side BT / Tiscali etc.

When asked if Virgin plan to move away from 2 listings to leave it’s new London listing the company offered no comment except that it’s something they might look into, in the future.

To help further the countries broadband, Britain will face a broadband tax before the next election which will help fund money into providing more house holds with quality high speed broadband.

Currently many towns and areas don’t have the infrastructure or are too far away from exchanges to be provided with broadband speeds they pay for. The extra money will help solve this problem with the average download speed per household going up as more money in funded into the sector.

Opinion is divided however with complaints about people not using landline based broadband or those who don’t wish to use broadband being charged regardless.

The scrappage scheme, a scheme in the United Kingdom to allow car customers to trade in their car for scrap for a brand new car has been extended for an extra year.

The scheme entices people to buy new cars by offering them a decent price for the scrappage of their car.

In some cases 3-4000£ can be made to trade for a brand new car.

The car industry seems to have benefited from this as second hand sales have been increasing compared to new sales thanks to the state of the economy.

Car makers will welcome the news in the struggle to sell their cars and keep current employers in a job for the future.

Orange have broken O2’s iphone exclusivity with news that they will now ship iphones to customers.

Plans and prices are still to be announced by rumours are that they will be competitively priced compared to the o2 plans.

After Orange and T-Mobiles major deal, future news will most likely be that the iphone will come to T-Mobile as well.

The Iphone is one of the worlds most popular phones and sold millions within it’s first week of sales world wide. It features the innovative App store where applications for nearly everything can be found, whether they are free or paid.

Japans consumer prices continue to fall this month by 2.4%. This is 4 months in a row where record falls have been noted.

Deflation will continue to increase meaning less consuming spending and more debt.

The Japanese government still desperatly try and recover the situation in these hard times, however times are hard and the problem will only solve itself as time passes.

This situation has already been predicted by the Bank of Japan and if their predictions carry on to be correct will last up until March 2011.  Because of this the bank is expected to further their predictions by another year with another forecast to be released by the end of October.

Unemployment continues to rise as more and more students graduate according to sources.

With the decline in jobs and steady increase in students graduating with a 2.2 or more, competition for jobs is now more crowded than ever.

The Job Centre reports an increase of numbers going through their doors to seek employment. With less jobs to recommend and advice on the situation is getting worse with broader job seeking advice being used to get people into work.

For help with getting a job the government has set up a number of sites including the Job seekers website to get you up and running and to possibly consider starting up your own business.