UK labour market cools as pay growth slows and job losses rise

The UK’s jobs market has continued to cool, according to official figures, amid a slowdown in annual pay growth and rising redundancies.Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show annual growth in regular earnings, excluding bonuses, slowed to 4.8% in the three months to July, down from 5% in the three months to June, matching the forecasts of City economists.The official unemployment rate was unchanged on the previous month in July, at 4.7%, the highest level in four years, also matching predictions

Big pharma firms have paused nearly £2bn in UK investments this year

Big pharmaceutical companies have ditched or paused nearly £2bn in planned UK investments so far this year, causing “suffering” to patients, as ministers gear up for discussions with Donald Trump amid a row over drug pricing.The government’s plan for the life science sector, a key pillar of the economy, has been thrown into disarray, after US drugmaker MSD’s shock announcement last Wednesday that it would scrap its £1bn London research centre. Two days later, AstraZeneca decided to halt a planned £200m expansion of its research facilities in Cambridge.Combined with a scrapped project by AstraZeneca in Liverpool and a shelved Eli Lilly lab in London, four projects worth more than £1.8bn have been pulled or paused this year

Healthy, safe and getting along with each other: Australia attempts to look beyond GDP to measure what matters

Too often economists reduce important issues, like prosperity, to a narrow set of indicators such as gross domestic product to measure national progress.Anything that boosts GDP is good, right?Well, no, of course not. Growing the size of the economy while wrecking the environment or making people miserable is no step forward.So a number of countries around the world – including the UK, Canada and New Zealand – have introduced alternative ways to measure wellbeing that goes “beyond GDP”.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailTreasury, under the direction of Jim Chalmers, established the “Measuring What Matters” framework in 2023 to track our progress towards “a more healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive and prosperous Australia”

Trump official confirmed to Fed board but court rejects Lisa Cook removal bid

Senate Republicans voted on Monday to confirm a senior Trump official to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors as the White House raced to strengthen the US president’s control over the central bank ahead of its latest meeting.Hours before Fed policymakers convene for their September decision on interest rates, the Senate voted 48 to 47 to confirm Stephen Miran – already chair of Donald Trump’s council of economic advisers – as a governor.The vote concluded just as a US appeals court declined the Trump administration’s request to fire Lisa Cook, a governor appointed by Joe Biden, before the two-day policy meeting begins on Tuesday. The ruling from the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit means that Cook may remain in her position during the policy meeting where the Fed is expected to cut interest rates.Miran’s appointment marks the first time in the history of the modern Federal Reserve, which stretches back almost a century, that a sitting member of the executive branch would also work at the highest levels of the central bank

Hackers steal private data of Gucci, Balenciaga and McQueen customers

Hackers have stolen data from customers of the luxury fashion group Kering, whose brands include Gucci, Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen.Cyber-attackers have stolen data of potentially millions of customers, including the names, phone numbers and email addresses of customers of the fashion group, it has emerged.Paris-based Kering said the breach happened in June and that no financial information – such as bank account numbers, credit card information, or government-issued identification numbers – was taken.The attackers have been identified as a ransom-seeking group, Shiny Hunters.Kering said on Monday: “In June 2025, we identified that an unauthorised third party gained temporary access to our systems and accessed limited customer data from some of our [fashion] houses

Argos was a bad buy – but Sainsbury’s doesn’t need to sell at a silly price | Nils Pratley

The thinking behind Sainsbury’s £1bn-plus purchase of Argos back in 2016 wasn’t entirely other-worldly. The big idea was that, by putting Argos general merchandise shops within Sainsbury’s supermarkets, both chains would benefit via a customer crossover effect. But the problem was also screamingly obvious: why volunteer to step in front of Amazon’s non-food steamroller?Simon Roberts became chief executive of Sainsbury’s in 2020, replacing Mike Coupe, the architect of the Argos deal, and immediately indicated where he stood. His “food first” strategy wasn’t quite a declaration that he viewed Argos as inessential to the day job of competing with Tesco et al, but it wasn’t far off.Thus nobody was surprised by Sainsbury’s confirmation on Saturday that it was considering an approach for Argos from JD