Food and drink industry flags up labour shortages as EU workers leave after Brexit vote or stay away due to fall in poundFood prices will rise unless the government ensures EU citizens can work in the UK after Brexit, according to industry groups representing the major supermarkets and food manufacturers, including the owner of Marmite.Related: EU workers in food and drink industry need assurance over Brexit | Letters Continue reading...

Nearly 4 million people are employed in growing, harvesting, producing, packaging, selling and serving our food and drink.In light of the vote for Brexit, the importance of food and drink to our nation’s economic and physical wellbeing should be recognised and its future secured. In recent years, Britain has enjoyed access to a wider range of safe, high-quality food and drink, at every price point, than ever before. At a time when household incomes are under increasing pressure, shop prices for food have been kept in check for more than three years and, if that is to continue, the government must ensure the place of food and drink both in our new industrial strategy and at the heart of the Brexit negotiations. Continue reading...

Greg Jericho, Katharine Murphy, Gareth Hutchens and the West Australian’s economics editor, Shane Wright, look back at the year in economics on this episode of Australian politics live. When the election promised jobs and growth, why do we now have less of both? Continue reading...

Treasurer says he would prefer policy changes were accepted before economic emergency, but Labor blames shrinking growth on Coalition’s lack of strategyScott Morrison says he does not want to wait for a recession to convince parliament of the need for his company tax cuts.He has referred to Paul Keating’s infamous phrase from 1990 about the “recession we had to have”, saying he would prefer important policy changes were accepted before an emergency.Related: Australian GDP: economy shrinks by 0.5% in September quarterRelated: Coalition policy has gone badly wrong and the RBA needs to cut interest rates | Stephen Koukoulas Continue reading...

Colin Hines of the Green New Deal Group on job-creating QE | James Taylor of Scope on disabled people in poverty | Dr Malcolm Torry of the Citizen’s Income Trust on a basic income | Anita Deshmukh on older women’s unemploymentMark Carney can himself do far more to bring about his desire for the rebalancing of the economy to help the “left behind” (Globalisation victims must now get a share of the gains, warns Carney, 6 December). In August the Bank of England announced a further £60bn of its quantitative easing programme, taking the total of e-printed money to £435bn, the equivalent of nearly £7,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.Instead of using this staggering amount of money to prop up the banks and inflate stock markets, property and other assets, the new £60bn of QE should be used to buy bonds from a national investment bank and from local authorities to generate a “jobs in every constituency” programme. This would give all people, not just the left behind, a sense of hope about their economic future and should involve decentralised infrastructure projects centred on a decades-long, multi-skilled programme of energy refits of all the nation’s 30 million dwellings, a shift to localised renewable energy, and a rebuilding of local transport, food and flood defence systems. Continue reading...

NIESR thinktank says hard Brexit would reduce annual GDP per head while giving only a ‘modest boost’ to wages of low paidA major cut in immigration from the European Union to Britain after Brexit would produce a damaging long-term hit to future economic growth while yielding only a “modest boost” of under 1% to the wages of low-paid workers, new research has found.The study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) thinktank says a “middle range” Brexit where EU immigration falls by as much as 91,000 a year would cut the growth of gross domestic product per head by 3.4% lower than it would otherwise have been by 2030.Related: Amber Rudd says EU nationals in post-Brexit UK will need 'form of ID' Continue reading...

Surprise 1.3% drop in October dents hopes economy will end year on a highIndustrial production fell sharply and unexpectedly in October, dealing a blow to hopes that the UK economy will end 2016 on a high.A surprise 1.3% drop in production over the month followed a 0.4% decrease in September, according to the Office for National Statistics, and was the biggest monthly fall in four years. Economists had forecast a 0.2% rise for October.Related: UK's trade deficit before Brexit vote narrower than first calculated Continue reading...

New figures show GDP receded in the third quarter raising prospect of recession and also likely to put pressure on federal government revenueAustralia’s economy slipped backwards in the September quarter, by a greater than expected 0.5%.It is the first time in five years the economy has recorded three months of negative growth.Related: Australian economy: dollar tumbles after worse than expected GDP figures – liveRelated: What dealing with financial stress looks like: ‘We lost the house, we lost everything’ Continue reading...

Office for National Statistics revises gap down to 6% from 7% after uncovering major mistake in import and export dataBritain’s trade deficit in the months before the Brexit vote was narrower than first calculated after the government’s statistics agency uncovered a major mistake in monthly import and export data going back to 2015.The multi-billion pound errors mean the UK appears to have relied slightly less on the “kindness of strangers” in the run up to the referendum. Continue reading...

Market expert says move could signal end of record low interest ratesThe first evidence has emerged that the era of record-low fixed-rate mortgages may be coming to an end after HSBC withdrew its “cheapest-ever” deal and increased rates on other products.

Bank of England governor urges policymakers to do more to share out the gains from global trade and technologyThe governor of the Bank of England has issued a rallying cry to policymakers across advanced economies to tackle the causes of a growing sense of “isolation and detachment” among people who feel left behind by globalisation.Warning that the UK was suffering its “first lost decade since the 1860s”, Mark Carney said that one of the reasons for the Brexit vote was a sense among people that they had lost control of their futures.Related: Mark Carney: European economies face hit if cut off from City of London Continue reading...

With eurozone authorities willing to bend their own rules, a solution could be at hand – though it would fix few long-term issuesInvestors’ ability to look on the bright side on political turmoil is remarkable. In the case of Italy, the departure of Matteo Renzi, the market-friendly centre-left prime minister, was followed quickly by the thought that the crisis in the country’s banking system may, counterintuitively, become easier to address.That wasn’t last week’s theory, of course. Back then, Renzi’s survival was seen as critical to encouraging private sector investors to cough up billions of euros of new capital to refinance the likes of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and UniCredit.Related: How Italy became this century's 'sick man of Europe' Continue reading...

The Bank of England governor’s look back at previous crises suggests action needs to be taken to stop capitalism from eating itselfHistory repeats itself. That was the message from Mark Carney as the governor of the Bank of England sought to draw some conclusions about the future of globalisation at the end of a turbulent year.Carney’s argument was that the current lost decade is not the first. The 1860s had its own financial crisis: the run on Overend, Gurney & Co was the last to befall a UK high street bank until the queues formed outside Northern Rock in 2007. It was a time of rapid technological change and a prolonged period of falling real wages.Related: Mark Carney: we must tackle isolation and detachment caused by globalisation Continue reading...

Italian bank shares volatile, but euro recovers after Matteo Renzi loses Sunday’s constitutional referendum

World’s oldest bank is seen as most at risk from economic fallout of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s poll defeatA rescue deal for the world’s oldest bank – Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena – hung in the balance on Monday after Italian voters rejected constitutional changes and plunged the government into crisis.Shares in MPS, which was founded in 1472 , fell amid fears the resignation of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will affect its attempts to clinch a €5bn (£4.2bn) lifeline from investors.Related: Will Italy’s failing banks trigger financial collapse across Europe? | Philip Molyneux Continue reading...

PMI survey shows fastest rate of growth since January but business confidence has been shaken by spectre of inflation and political uncertaintyBritain’s economy looks on course for a solid finish to the year after a closely watched business survey for last month smashed expectations, although worries about inflation and political uncertainty are making firms nervous about 2017.Companies in the UK’s services sector, which spans banking to hotels, enjoyed the fastest growth in activity since January as they continued to recover from a short, sharp downturn following the Brexit vote. The report chimed with other indicators suggesting businesses and consumers have shrugged off the referendum result for now.Related: Demand is weak and investment’s faltering. That’s OK thenUK firms' input costs have risen at the fastest rate for 5 years so far in Q4. Either margins will be squeezed or consumer prices will rise pic.twitter.com/Mjcs5JwC4n Continue reading...

Company purchases and cheap finance deals drive surge but economists warn private demand is falling as consumers are put off by Brexit vote uncertaintyNew car sales in the UK continued to rise last month as growing demand from businesses made up for falling demand from private buyers.A total of 184,101 vehicles were registered in November, a rise of 2.9% from a year earlier, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. So far this year, more than 2.5m new cars were registered – a record for the 11-month period. Continue reading...

The single currency could sink to US80c, according to analysts, as a vital rebooting of Italy’s fragile banking sector is set be delayed againThe euro has fallen to a 20-month low against the dollar and investors fled riskier assets after Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign on Monday following a crushing defeat on constitutional reform.Renzi’s defeat threatens to undermine efforts to stabilise the country’s shaky banking system and deals a wider body blow to the European Union, which is already reeling under anti-establishment anger in the wake of June’s Brexit vote.Related: Italy referendum: Matteo Renzi to resign after defeat as Austria rejects far right – liveEU28: Euro reacts to exit polls in Italy's constitutional referendum. #referendumcostituzionale #ExitPolls #maratonamentana #Euro pic.twitter.com/TV3mGJVIdMIm going to keep ReTweeting this post I made on July 5th after #Brexit until people get it. The EU is in a much worse position than UK #EURO https://t.co/xTU7eoRzTCRelated: Referendum result may lead nowhere for Italy's Five Star and Northern LeagueNigel Farage: Hope the exit polls in #Italy are right. This vote looks to me to be more about the #Euro than constitutional change. pic.twitter.com/WBIUVsC5Hj Continue reading...

Both sides in the Brexit debate did some embellishing, so those who wanted to stay in the EU should stop calling for a replay

Sunday’s referendum has become a vote on a cocktail of problems and pressing national issues. But its most far-reaching impact will be a financial one‘All Italians know the government has a problem when it comes to making decisions. It’s just that people are divided over how to make the situation better.” So said one Italian government official last week as he denied that Sunday’s referendum was a verdict on Matteo Renzi’s government, the euro or the European Union.Unfortunately, the referendum has become a judgment on all three, along with the constitutional amendments it is supposed to be about, making it difficult to unpick the views of voters when all the votes are finally counted. Continue reading...

Theresa May is leading the country towards a total and economically calamitous EU divorce in 2018By any measure, it has been a bad week for hard Brexiters and Theresa May’s government. Problem is, the two have become all but synonymous. Thursday’s shock byelection result in Richmond Park showed that the pro-Europe convictions of nearly half the country’s voters cannot wisely be ignored. Conservative supporters were alienated by May’s “pandering” to hardline party zealots and Ukip fellow travellers, the victorious Liberal Democrats claimed. “One of the things that concerns a great deal of people in this constituency is… the Conservative government seems to be shifting very rapidly towards the right,” said Sarah Olney, the unashamedly Europhile winning candidate.There is a widely shared perception that May, far from reuniting the country in the wake of the EU referendum, as she promised, is cementing and entrenching divisions. It would be wrong to see in the byelection outcome definitive proof that the national mood has radically shifted in the past six months. Most Richmond voters favoured Remain in June. But the scale of Tory defections suggests deep unhappiness with May’s subsequent, lopsided approach. It is as though she and her ministers have wholly dismissed the views of the 48% who rejected Brexit, just as they arrogantly rejected last month’s impartial, legally sound high court judgment that parliament must be consulted prior to the triggering of article 50.Related: We’re marching towards a mad Brexit. Someone must speak for the 48% | Jonathan FreedlandRelated: Brexit: rising frustration across EU at Britain's unclear exit strategy Continue reading...