Gender pay gap, US-Chinese trade, 5G auction, car registrations, Vauxhall: your commercial news round-up
updated on 05 April 2018
Without a little prompting, we can all let good intentions slide – especially so when it comes to the sort of preparatory work that requires long-term commitment. Developing your commercial awareness is one such example; it’s not enough to read the FT on the way to your training contract interview. You have to put in hours well in advance of that, so where better to start than with another collection of the week’s most interesting business news stories?:
- Last night’s deadline of the mandatory provision of gender pay gap data for companies with over 250 employees has revealed that eight out of 10 companies pay their male employees more, with a median 18.7% disparity. In some instances, the gap was closer to 50%.
- Trade tensions between the United States and China are ramping up, as the US proposes taxing a variety of Chinese imports, and China responds in kind. Each country is suggesting a 25% tariff be imposed on hundreds of products.
- The race to provide next generation 5G mobile phone coverage has seen some of the industry’s biggest players spend £1.4 billion to secure the ability to launch their services. EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three have paid more than double than predicted in Ofcom’s spectrum auction.
- There has been a significant drop in the number of cars registered in the UK, with figures from March showing a reduction of nearly 16% compared to 2017 figures. Reasons are said to include economic uncertainty (hi Brexit) and falling diesel car sales – they were down a massive 37% compared to 2017.
- In more cheering vehicular news, Vauxhall has announced that it will be increasing production to 100,000 cars a year at its Luton plant.
Be sure to check the News every Thursday for this weekly commercial news round-up. Follow @LawCareersNetUK on Twitter and like us on Facebook for instant business news updates.
