Business

Image copyright Getty Images Productivity in the UK fell at its fastest annual pace in five years in the April-to-June quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics. The figure – measured by output per hour – fell by 0.5%, after two previous quarters of zero growth. Both services and manufacturing saw a fall from […]

Image copyright Elvie Image caption Tania Boler’s company has developed a pelvic-floor trainer and a breast pump. The meteoric rise of the label “femtech” to describe technology products, apps and hardware addressing women’s health and wellbeing issues divides opinion. While some say it helps the sector secure vital funding from male-dominated venture capitalists, others argue

Image copyright Reuters Image caption The NBA’s largest store outside North America is in Beijing China’s state broadcaster has scrapped plans to show two US NBA basketball pre-season exhibition games, as the row over a team executive’s tweet in support of Hong Kong protesters grows. Houston Rockets boss Daryl Morley apologised after his tweet, from

Image copyright Getty Images The government has cut a tariff on lorries imported into the UK in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The move comes after the Road Haulage Association (RHA) pushed the government to axe the tariff altogether. Instead, for the first year after the UK leaves the EU, the government will reduce

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption HKEX said it was “disappointed” it had been unable to engage with LSE’s management Hong Kong’s stock exchange has dropped its multibillion-dollar bid for the prized London Stock Exchange (LSE). The bid was worth £32bn ($40bn) and was dependent on the axing of the London exchange’s planned purchase of

Image copyright Jim Estill Image caption Jim Estill has personally enabled more than 300 Syrians to start a new life in Canada The BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles different business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Jim Estill, Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist. When Jim Estill saw the horrors of the

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media captionGloomy post-Brexit forecasts ‘accurate’ Even a “relatively benign” no-deal Brexit would push UK debt to its highest since the 1960s, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said. The think tank said borrowing would likely climb to £100bn and total debt would soar to 90% of national income.

Image copyright Julie Paige A Thomas Cook passenger due to fly home on Tuesday has said she is “stuck” in Tunisia, unable to secure a new flight. Julie Paige told the BBC that she had booked a flight with the collapsed travel firm which was not covered by the industry insurance fund Atol. “I had

Image caption James Daunt says the strategy for turnaround at Barnes & Noble is relatively simple James Daunt, credited with a turnaround at Britain’s biggest book chain, Waterstones, is plotting a similar strategy to address the troubles at America’s Barnes & Noble. In the 1990s, the company was king of America’s bookshops, a fast-expanding corporate

House prices are rising at the slowest annual pace for more than six years, according to the Halifax. The mortgage lender, part of Lloyds Banking Group, said prices rose 1.1% in the year to the end of September, the slowest rate since April 2013. Price growth would remain “subdued” for as long as economic uncertainty