Wage squeeze loosens, IMF debt warning, TPP, Jaguar Land Rover, rogue landlords: your commercial news round-up

This week’s best economic news is that the year-long squeeze on wages is nearing an end, at least according to the Office of National Statistics, which has released figures showing that people’s pay is now catching up to inflation. However, reports from elsewhere in the world show that the global economic situation remains precarious.

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that global debt is now higher than at the time of worldwide financial crisis in 2008 due to a prolonged period of low interest rates. Although China’s rising debt has been the biggest contributor, many other countries are now at risk and another crash would probably be worse than 2008. The IMF has also forecasted that current growth trends in the US and eurozone are likely to peter out.
• US President Donald Trump has said that he will reconsider joining the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a free trade pact with Asia-Pacific countries, if the US is offered a better deal than it was under President Obama. Critics, including in Trump’s own Republican Party, are concerned that the president’s latest shift is part of a dangerous policy of pursuing economic confrontation with China, while labour unions oppose TPP because it heavily favours business interests over those of workers.
• Closer to home, carmaker Jaguar Land Rover is cutting 1,000 jobs in the West Midlands, blaming uncertainty in the market caused by Brexit.
• MPs on the Housing, Communities and Local Government committee have called for landlords who break the law and exploit their tenants to have their properties confiscated. The chair of the committee, Clive Betts MP said: “The imbalance in power in the private rented sector means vulnerable tenants often lack protection from unscrupulous landlords, who can threaten them with retaliatory rent rises and eviction if they complain about unacceptable conditions in their homes”.
• It has emerged that many employers are abusing apprenticeships by relabelling low-paid roles such as restaurant waiting and hotel reception jobs as apprenticeships. Doing so enables employers to use the apprenticeship levy to shift the cost of training onto the taxpayer.

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