Rolling financial, economic and business news through the day, as Switzerland fails to grow in the second quarter of 2014
Switzerlands GDP misses forecasts with 0% growth
9.39am BST
The UK construction sector has posted its strongest jump in activity in seven month, raising fears of a shortage of skilled staff.
Builders have reported a surge in housebuilding, and a rise in commercial and civil engineering last month.
UK construction firms saw one of the sharpest rises in output for seven years in August, with increasing workloads driven by an array of factors including surging homebuilding activity, greater infrastructure spending and renewed confidence within the commercial development sector.
Acute skill shortages meant that sub- contractor charges rose at the fastest pace since the survey began in 1997. Meanwhile, sub-contractor availability fell at a survey-record pace, which could act to further ignite pay pressures in the short term.
9.29am BST
The pound has dipped against the US dollar this morning after a poll showed the Yes to Independence camp gaining ground in the Scottish referendum battle.
Its not a big move -- sterling is down about 0.3% today. One pound is worth $1.6564, down from $1.66 last night before the poll was released.
A Scottish yes to independence poses far more questions (about the currency, the debt, the oil, the future) than it answers but my best guess is that a Yes would trigger a 3-5% fall by sterling as an initial reaction, compared to an equally unsophisticated guess that the UK leaving the EU sends sterling down 10-15%.
It is now unlikely that the gap is big enough for a no this time around to kick the issue into the long grass for ever. If, for example, the UK were to leave the EU after a referendum, Mr Salmond would leap back on the bandwagon and apply for an independent Scotland to remain in. And so on.
9.13am BST
The latest Spanish employment figures are also out this morning, and show a small rise in unemployment.
But the underlying picture does show signs of improvement within Spains chronically weak labour market.
8.35am BST
Economists are concerned by the evaporation of growth in the Swiss economy in the last quarter.
Maxime Botteron of Credit Suisse is worried that capital investment fell, saying:
For us its really below expectations. We expected a bit more growth. The trend in exports is not a big surprise. Trade data so far already pointed to a rather weak contribution of exports. What is a bit more surprising is the weak investment spending, especially in the construction sector.
The global economy isnt developing as wed expected,
We think the weakness will last into 2015. The pickup will come, but not as strongly as wed thought.
#brexit Stagnant Swiss economy sends warning msg to UK europhobes hailing CH as the model to follow after leaving EU
8.18am BST
Bloomberg pins the blame firmly on the weakness of the Eurozone, saying:
The Swiss economy lost pace in the second quarter with private consumption failing to make up for slowing exports as stagnating growth in the euro-area took its toll....
8.16am BST
These are the worst Swiss growth figures in two years, as our friends at fastFT flag up:
8.10am BST
The full Swiss GDP report is available on the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO)s website.
It shows that exports of jewellery made a notable positive contribution to growth. However, the countrys banking sector did not:
On the production side many sectors reported virtually no change in value added between the 1st and 2nd quarters.
Industry, energy and water supply made an overall small positive contribution to GDP growth, by contrast the value added in the financial sector and some public sector economic areas showed a stagnating to slightly falling trend.
8.02am BST
Todays GDP report shows that the Swiss economy has suffered a slowdown in export growth.
Exports rose by just 0.6% in April-June, down from robust growth of 2.3% in January-March.
7.49am BST
Heres Reuters first take on the unexpectedly weak Swiss GDP figures released this morning.
Switzerlands economy stalled in the second quarter, with output unchanged from the first, dragged down by weaker exports and falling construction spending, data showed on Tuesday.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a quarterly growth rate of 0.5%.
7.42am BST
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.
The breaking news this morning is that Switzerland has joined the ranks of European countries suffering a slowdown.
Another housebuilder with record results - North-focused Redrow's FY PBT up 91% to £132m. Help to Buy supported 35% of completions.
It will be a wide-ranging discussion . the bar has been raised. We have to bear in mind who the counterparties are. They are members of the International Monetary Fund, the (European) Commission, and the European Central Bank
You must understand their limits. They cannot speak politically.
Continue reading...Official figures showing falling wages are masking booming pay deals for white-collar construction employees and other professional jobs that will spread to other parts of the economy, the boss of one of Britain's biggest recruiters has said.
Construction firms are paying inflation-busting salary increases to architects and other professional staff because of competition for their services, said Alistair Cox, the chief executive of Hays.
Continue reading...My best friend, Beryl Foote, who has died after a stroke, aged 67, was probably the first woman quantity surveyor in the British building industry. Many images of Beryl come to mind. Almost invisible behind vast pads in hockey goal while still wearing her glasses. With hard hat and steely glare in place to face down the toughest sub-contractor on the biggest construction site. Climbing effortlessly through steep bluebell woods pointing out every tiny plant and naming every bird's song.
After shaky grades stopped her studying mathematics at Reading University, she dropped out of an electrical engineering degree at Warwick to become a pupil quantity surveyor in 1966 to John Laing. Thus began nearly 50 years in what she called "a bastion of male supremacy", working all over the south of England on both big and small commercial and domestic sites, transferring from the John Laing Group to George Wimpey. She was seen as a role model, was still working when she died and contributed to a case study of women in industry. She was gratified when the occasional woman began to appear on site, but lamented that they were so few.
Continue reading...This year there were 4.6m people who were self-employed in their main job, with the rises over the past few years having a big effect on the overall employment numbers
About 15% of those working in the UK in 2014 are self-employed - the highest proportion in the four decades that data has been collected on the subject.
As well as these 4.6m people, there were also an extra 356,000 who had a second job in which they were self-employed according to a release by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Continue reading...British construction firm Carillion has raised for the third time its merger proposal for engineering company Balfour Beatty, with new terms that value its rival at £2.1bn.
Carillion said under the new offer Balfour shareholders would have 58.3% of the combined firm. They would also get a cash dividend of 8.5p per share.
Continue reading...
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