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When the UK’s furlough scheme was announced near the start of the pandemic, Paul Stephenson thought he would be eligible. He was working via a temp agency in a small manufacturing company where other staff were being furloughed. But he wasn’t employed by either the manufacturer or the agency. Instead, his employer was an “umbrella

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: Federal Reserve poised to raise rates a half-per cent Jess SmithGood morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, May 3rd. And this is your FT News Briefing. [MUSIC PLAYING]  US central bankers are meeting today amid expectations for a half point interest

Democrats in Congress sounded alarm bells after a leaked draft ruling indicated the US Supreme Court was set to overturn the landmark Roe vs Wade ruling that has guaranteed abortion rights across the country for almost five decades. The draft opinion, dated February 10 and signed by Justice Samuel Alito, part of the court’s staunchly

In March the co-founder and head of consumer engineering at DoorDash, Andy Fang, could be found dropping off an order from a sushi restaurant to a customer’s apartment in San Francisco. The food delivery app had restarted its WeDash programme that requires all of its salaried employees in the US, Canada and Australia to get

Your article (“The road to energy independence starts at home”, Opinion, April 29) perfectly defined one of the key steps we should all be taking to limit Russia’s ability to attack in Ukraine — energy efficient consumer behaviour. It is one of the essential ways we all can make a contribution while helping Ukrainians to

Sarah O’Connor was right to hail the success of auto enrolment in transforming pensions saving as a rare British policy success (Opinion, April 26). Before memories fade we should pay tribute to Adair Turner, whose vision it was to promote the idea in 2006, which was then taken on, albeit too slowly, first by the

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister who built the foundations for the city-state, was different things to different people. Former British foreign secretary George Brown called him the “best bloody Englishman east of Suez”. The Chinese government described Lee upon his death as a “strategist embodying Oriental values”. Singapore’s next leader will find it

At least 350 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel in the past two days, despite the British government’s new plan to fly thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda. One refugee charity cast doubt on the government’s assertion that its Rwanda plan will deter migrants from making clandestine boat journeys across

Germany has warned that EU consumers should brace for a big economic hit and higher energy prices as Berlin said it was willing to back an embargo of Russian oil to punish Moscow for its war on Ukraine. Europe was prepared to bear the strain of cutting its use of Russian crude, said Robert Habeck,

Cash can be tight for those start-up companies that have yet to sell any products. Best, then, that managers of those groups avoid unnecessary expenses. Nikola Corporation, the clean-energy truckmaker, violated this principle last year in dramatic fashion. The Arizona-based company agreed to a $125mn settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over charges

The writer is author of ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ and professor emeritus at Harvard Business School On April 23, lawmakers in Brussels approved the Digital Services Act, a major piece of legislation aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech. The DSA is not just more procedural drudgery on the EU’s conveyor belt of

The great retail trading boom of 2021 is turning to bust. That is the view of Robinhood, the company whose commission-free trading app helped turn millions of people into first-time investors. But it is not the full story. Robinhood’s funded accounts grew by 100,000 to 22.8mn in the three months to the end of March,

The government of China does not have the legitimacy that flows from winning an election. But officials in China often claim that the Communist party benefits from something even better: “performance legitimacy”. The idea that the Chinese government easily outperforms the dysfunctional west has been pushed hard during the Covid-19 crisis. At a ceremony in

Hello from Trade Secrets. In today’s main piece, we look at how the Ukraine war, as well as finally giving the EU some geopolitical backbone (though how firm that will be in the longer run remains to be seen), has helped transatlantic co-operation on trade-related security issues. Charted Waters looks at one of the reasons

The US has held top-level talks with the UK on how the two nations can co-operate more closely to reduce the chances of war with China over Taiwan. It is the first time the countries have explored conflict contingency plans. Kurt Campbell, the White House Indo-Pacific co-ordinator, and Laura Rosenberger, the top National Security Council

The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago It’s a cliché that the US is a nation of immigrants — and a cliché that, for the past few years, has been just plain wrong. This nation of 330mn people managed to resettle a meagre 11,000 refugees in the fiscal year that ended in September

The coronavirus pandemic is creeping closer to the halls of power in Beijing as authorities rush to avoid an uncontrolled Shanghai-style Omicron outbreak in China’s capital. Beijing is tightening coronavirus restrictions after reporting 41 cases on Sunday. Officials in the city of 22mn, which is also home to the ruling Chinese Communist party’s senior leaders,

Good morning. We don’t break years into thirds, but if we did, we’d be saying “the first third was just awful for stocks”. The S&P 500 hit its all-time high on January 3 — opening day for markets — and is down 14 per cent since then. Today I take the measure of what happened:

Few western statesmen have enjoyed much quality time with Xi Jinping, especially as China’s president has of late retreated into pandemic-era seclusion. Kevin Rudd is one who did. “I spent a total of 10 hours in conversation with Xi in six separate meetings, including about three hours around a winter fire at the prime ministerial

Investment by UK employers in training has fallen by more than a quarter since 2005, and an overhaul by the government of tax incentives is needed to stop Britain “sleepwalking into stagnation in skills”, according to new research. Employer spending per employee on training has fallen 28 per cent in real terms since 2005, dropping