Signs of recovery

There had to be a recovery, even the blubbery liar could not f that up. With the build up to Xmas it should continue.

The big loss is the Travel industry, that should help next year. Picked up family from Newcastle Airport it was almost empty.
 
Same_as_before said:
There had to be a recovery, even the blubbery liar could not f that up. With the build up to Xmas it should continue.

The big loss is the Travel industry, that should help next year. Picked up family from Newcastle Airport it was almost empty.
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Hopefully support is given to the travel and tourism industries. Those along with the hospitality industries around the world went a long way to dragging us all out of the global recession.
 
Regardless of where we are coming from is good news the direction we are travelling in. Probably not fast or far enough but good news for the time being.
 
I think we will know more once the furlough scheme comes to an end. A lot of companies are going to have some difficult decisions to make. There's just under 2 million employees who are still on furlough. NIESR said they expect the unemployment figures to increase by approx. 150K.
 
I suspect some companies will realise that they don't actually need as many employees as they thought, having operated with reduced numbers, home working etc
 
I thought our GDP was rising by around 7% - maybe that is based on July.

Some sectors are still almost still in lockdown e.g. cruise ships

Nightclubs in some of the UK only opened up this week and three weeks ago in England. Football stadium only go back to normal this week. Think of all the people still working from home and how that limits economic activity such as commuting. Cancelling Glastonbury must affect GDP in July. It will be Q4 2021 before economic activity is close to normal.

Some dramatic activity at present like waiting 6 months for a new car - second hand prices went up 14% in the last 12 months in the UK and 45% in the USA, car hire prices in parts of the EU up 100%.
 
Some great spin by Sunak, but when you drill down into it, it's nowhere near as "good" as it's made out to be.

It is a partial recovery though, to some degree and it is encouraging, but I suppose it needs to be looked at with a bit of context, in regards to what is fuelling it, and where that money has come from.

GDP recovery, partially paid by national debt isn't really a "real" recovery, it's like paying off a loan with a credit card.
It could also be looked at in regards to our competition (the EU), we're doing worse, and the USA is doing even better.

Everyone knew there would be a summer bounce, especially in hospitality, and later tourism, it was/ is a dead cert, it's what it costs, who it costs, where that cost has come from and whether it can be maintained, how long for and how we compare to the rest of the world.

We were at 40% debt as % GDP in 2008, 80% in 2019 and over 100% now. It's going to take some doing to get back to pre-2019 levels, never mind pre-2008.

We are recovering now, for the time being, but the only time we can say we've recovered is when we're back to pre-covid national debt, GDP is higher than it was pre covid, wages have caught up and beaten inflation, and we match or do better than the competition.
 
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I'm still working from home every day. There seems to be no urgency to get people going to work again. No one's doing anything. It's appalling. Looking into other careers now because if this solitary existence is my future, I'm not really interested in having a future. We're still basically hiding in our homes.
 
the company I work for had its worst quarter in Q2 last year in the companies 100 year history, but Q2 this year was the best quarter in the companies history.

BUT, supply chains across all markets and companies and suppliers is about as stressed as I have ever known it, and not just in my industry, its across the board and might well last for quite some time. Products and components that used to be on a 7 week leadtime are now being quoted at 45 weeks.

lots of companies are reporting record revenues, but reduced margins, reduced profitability and higher materials and freight costs.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
I'm still working from home every day. There seems to be no urgency to get people going to work again. No one's doing anything. It's appalling. Looking into other careers now because if this solitary existence is my future, I'm not really interested in having a future. We're still basically hiding in our homes.
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Office space is expensive. Where I worked it will be nearly all work-from-home. They are shedding floors of prime office space at Grand Central.
 
Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret said:
I'm still working from home every day. There seems to be no urgency to get people going to work again. No one's doing anything. It's appalling. Looking into other careers now because if this solitary existence is my future, I'm not really interested in having a future. We're still basically hiding in our homes.
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I want to get back to the office too sheriff I like the interaction you get day to day that often had nothing to do with work.
 
Laughing said:
I want to get back to the office too sheriff I like the interaction you get day to day that often had nothing to do with work.
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I agree with this but look at it from a companies point of view. They spend thousands on office space per month. If they can have staff working from home and producing the same results they are bound to close floors
 
I like working in the office but I think a lot of companies will realise just how much office space costs, especially if they're in a city centre location. One of my friends is working from home and they were previously in a WeWork office. They had 2 thirds of a floor in central London and were paying over 2 million quid a year. If your clients have also started working from home, the pull of the central office diminishes a lot.
 
If I owned an office, I would be trying to sell it ASAP, no matter what I had to sell it for.

The cost of offices could be a mute point like, when they can't be shifted and there's nobody to rent them, as rents will crash through the floor. They could end up letting them out for free, as keeping hold of it with no use could end up costing more in security, maintenance and upkeep. Not like they're going to change town centre offices into shops either, when the shops area clearing out. It's warehouses near motorways, and home working (for computer-based jobs), that's the future.

I don't think I've been to a companies offices in over a year (used to go once a week), and output/ consultation has been no worse, it's probably been better. The teams meetings tend to be more productive as you can do 12 x 30-minute meaningful meetings at regular intervals, in the time it would take to have 2 x hour ones, which are an hour away.

It's less cost for the company, it's greener, the space could be used for better things, and it's often better for their staff being semi flexi at home, so thy can work hours around life, rather than working life around hours.

Offices were always going to be finished by the cloud/ online, but the pandemic has accelerated it by 10 years.
 
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SmallTown said:
I agree with this but look at it from a companies point of view. They spend thousands on office space per month. If they can have staff working from home and producing the same results they are bound to close floors
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Our office is closed because Infosys think it's not safe to cram us into an office yet. As far as I am aware they will be keeping the office space which only holds about 20%of our workforce anyway.

I am sure lots of companies will be looking at scaling back on office space and having a hybrid working model.
 
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