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As the UK woke up this morning to the reality of being officially in recession, the three-day working week is starting to look inevitable in certain sectors of industry. The news that the largest steel manufacturer in Britain,

Corus is to lay off 3500 of its labor force added to the expected announcement that the parts manufacturer GKN Automotive is due to announce they will also lay off thousands in the wake of negative profits.

Signs that the automotive industry is particularly affected by the recession are the news that Jaguar Land Rover are also looking to make yet another cut 1,500 jobs within a week or two. .

Corus, which employs 24,000 in factories located in the United Kingdom are in a period of restructuring in an attempt to resist strong competition in a market in rapid decline, and particularly strong competition from Brazil and India.

How to be a last minute attempt to prevent these painful job cuts, Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is expected to be in talks with the Treasury. Its obvious purpose is to prevent these cuts workforce for the automotive industry, and a compromise is likely to partially finance the cost of wages, and suggests a three-day working week is set work in these factories still things begin to recover in the economy, which could be a few years. With car manufacturers around the world and threatening suggesting that three days a week and production interruptions are inevitable, it seems that the UK will have no choice but to follow suit.

On a more positive note, it seems that the British public while reducing large purchases such as property, cars, appliances and almost anything else, spend more on cosmetics and personal care products and on entertainment. These positive trends have been prominently on Friday as PZ Cussons, whose name brand Imperial Leather and Carex both announced growth figures of over ten per cent in the last quarter of 2008.

The group PZ Cussons, has submitted a M.E.N. Business of the Year award for 2008, announced that it continued to show growth of their business in the United Kingdom. A spokesman for the company said they had put their success on the new initiatives, such as the revival and updating of perfumes and domestic products in their range of Carex. This included anti-bacterial wipes and waterless hand gels.

Another company that seems to be against the downward trend is exceptionally well is expected BSkyB announced operating results for the second half of 2008, December 31 will show a slowdown, which is small compared state of the British economy as it stands currently.
The forecast profit before tax of £ 290m for BSkyB shows an increase of five per cent over the same period in 2007.

Thus, while the public of the United Kingdom are digging to see this through recession, it seems that trends are many of them spend more time at home, and make a determined effort to look and smell better!

Friday night on the U.S. stock market, stocks continued their decline to a disappointing earnings being reported by some industry standards such as Microsoft and Fifth Third Bancorp’s announcement, although expected, Microsoft had to pay 5000 people in the world has sent a chill over a few spines on Wall Street as they announced to shareholders that they would be willing to provide a profit forecast for 2009.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 2.5 percent, to 8077.56, with Wells Fargo and Bank of America collapsed more than 13 percent for the week. These drops oil on the fire in May that the banks are forced to take decisive steps to strengthen their balance sheets.

Average annual profits have declined since January 2008 by sixty percent for the 69 companies that comprise the S & P 500 which results for the fourth quarter have been published to date. The U.S. financial analysts are now expected that most companies will report more than a drop of 30 per cent of its profits for the last quarter of 2008 alone.

President Obama in a determined effort to show he is a president and a skilled orator began to congressional leaders urged to reach consensus on a plan of 825 billion stimulus package. He warned that the country in May to face an economic crisis was “unprecedented”. Obama warnings have been given a little extra weight with ads that average house prices fell the most since 1990 in November 2008, housing starts fell 16 per cent in December and the number of Americans filing the first time claims for unemployment benefits climbed to its highest level since 1983.

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