Expect a tale of two holiday seasons as the well-off spend and the rest pull back | Gene Marks

Will retailers and merchants have a strong holiday season? That depends. This year, more than most, the 2025 holiday season will actually be two holiday seasons.If your business caters to higher-income individuals or if you’re located in a wealthier part of the country, you’ll probably have a decent holiday season. True, even the wealthy are cutting back. But according to the HR firm ADP average salaries have risen between 4

Bakery chain Gail’s plans to open 40 more outlets as sales soar

The upmarket bakery chain Gail’s is planning 40 more outlets after sales rose by a fifth last year as it opened 36 new bakeries and sales to supermarkets increased.The cafe and retailer, which currently has 185 sites, said sales rose to £278m in the year to the end of February but that pre-tax losses widened to £7.8m, from £7.4m a year before, as costs rose and it spent millions on opening new outlets, according to accounts filed at Companies House.Gail’s directors said staff and energy costs had risen, hitting profit margins, while it spent £51m on store pre-opening costs

Is gen Z’s love of fried chicken pushing Britain to ‘peak pizza’?

Competition intensifies as former chief of Domino’s says days of ‘massive growth’ are overPizza has become ubiquitous on British dinner plates, with chains such as Pizza Express, Franco Manca, Domino’s and Goodfella’s dominating the market – but is its popularity starting to cool?Domino’s Pizza Group announced this week that its chief executive of two years had stepped down with immediate effect, less than two weeks after he appeared to suggest the UK may be approaching “peak pizza”.Andrew Rennie – who worked for Domino’s for more than two decades and in the top job for just two – told the Financial Times this month there was not “massive growth” left in the UK’s pizza market.Given the fast-growing demand for fried chicken, he said it was “pretty obvious” the group should broaden its menu.Rennie’s calculations are borne out by the shrinking presence of pizza restaurants on UK high streets after a period of rapid expansion more than a decade ago.The number of chain pizza restaurants has fallen from 5,000 in 2015 to 3,750 today, according to the restaurant analysts CGA, with companies such as Pizza Express, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns closing outlets in recent years

Net migration is plummeting. Why can’t Labour say so? | Heather Stewart

Keir Starmer’s response to the 69% fall in net migration revealed in official figures last week was to remark: “That’s a step in the right direction.”Describing a reduction of more than two-thirds of any indicator in a single year as a “step” would be a creative use of statistics, putting it kindly.But on this most polarising of topics, and for the prime minister, whose job it is to shape public opinion, not cower before it (to “teach”, as the longtime political commentator Steve Richards calls it), it was inexcusable.Starmer’s insouciance about the collapse in numbers – from 649,000 last year to 204,000 in the year to June – was just the latest example of how damagingly detached from reality political debate about migration has become.Since Brexit, net migration has been on a rollercoaster ride more dramatic than anything at Alton Towers – a record rise followed in short order by a record decline

Harrods warehouse staff underpaid by thousands of pounds after agency error

Harrods warehouse staff have been underpaid thousands of pounds after the temporary recruitment agency employing the workers failed to award them the correct levels of holiday pay.The error, which possibly equates to a six-figure debt owed to hundreds of lower-paid personnel, marks the latest setback to the image of the exclusive Knightsbridge retailer, which is owned by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and has spent the past 12 months firefighting a series of crises.The recent difficulties have included Harrods establishing a compensation scheme in March for survivors of alleged sexual abuse by the former owner Mohamed Al Fayed, while in May the department store warned customers their personal data may have been taken after a high-profile IT breach.Harrods warehouse workers were underpaid by The Best Connection, a temporary staffing agency that employs the staff and then supplies them under contract to Harrods.The discovery is understood to have been made after two years of warnings to Harrods that the pricing of The Best Connection’s services raised questions if it was lowballing tender offers to corporate customers, only to make back any missing margin from lower-paid workers

Airbus issues major A320 recall after mid-air incident grounds planes, disrupting global travel

Airlines around the world cancelled and delayed flights heading into the weekend after Airbus announced on Friday that it had ordered immediate repairs to 6,000 of its A320 family of jets in a recall affecting more than half of the global fleet.The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), which is the main certifying authority for A320 aircraft, issued the instruction on Friday night as a precautionary action, saying that “safety is paramount”.The US Federal Aviation Administration also issued an emergency airworthiness directive for certain Airbus planes, requiring the aircraft to replace or modify specific software.The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software and is relatively simple, but must be carried out before the planes can fly again, according to the bulletin to airlines seen by Reuters.Of the 6,000 jets affected, a sub-set will need a time-consuming hardware change rather than a quick software fix, though the number that require more extensive fixes was smaller than the initial estimates of 1,000, Airbus said