Unemployment of young people in the UK in February 2012 was 1.03m – down from 1.04m in the last quarter of 2011. Despite this modest fall, observers in the UK and around the world, including the UK’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the World Economic Forum, agree that youth unemployment represents one of the most serious economic and social problems facing developed and developing economies alike. Youth unemployment of 1.03m (at 22%) means that approximately one in five young people actively engaged in the labour market (those defined as active) are looking for work, but cannot obtain...
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has announced its plans to create a new competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which will replace the Competition Commission as well as take over the all competition functions of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT.
The Greek parliament has today voted to accept the government’s austerity package, which includes deep spending cuts and wide-ranging tax increases amounting to 28 billion euros. This will enable the Greek government to borrow a further 12 billion euros – the next tranche of the estimated 120 billion euro IMF/Euro-area bailout – allowing Greece to pay off its debts until at least 2014 and avoiding bankruptcy.
Npower announced today that it is following the lead of British Gas, the UK’s dominant gas supplier, by announcing that it is increasing both its electricity and gas prices by 9.1% and 8.8% respectively. This follows British Gas’s price increase of 6%. Consumer watchdogs immediately criticised the energy supplier’s decisions, pointing to the lack of competition in the energy market.
