Podcasts related to Economics

This week Nick looks into the autumn statement and how it has addressed the skills gap with Verity O’Keefe, from the EEF, employee engagement with Ian McVey from Qualtrics, the depleted skills base and the need for more engineers in the civil sector with Charley Whitelock and Darren James and finally the social sector with Adele Blakebrough from the Social Business Trust.

This week we discuss Phillip Hammond's Autumn Statement, where he announced changes to salary sacrifice schemes, new money for housing and the leaked ban on letting agent's fees. Joining Sarah are, Jane Moore, from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Debbie Lovewell-Tuck, editor of Employee Benefits magazine, Sue Warwick who's an Independent Housing Specialist at Infusion Living and Richard Connolly, the CEO of Rentplus.

Have you been using your credit cards to get in on the black Friday deals, or perhaps some Christmas shopping? Credit cards can be extremely useful against fraud but can be a big problem if you aren't able to pay them off quickly. So should you bother, or are you better off without? To discuss this with Sarah she is joined by Young Money champion, James Connington, Andy Webb of becleverwithyourcash.com, Andrew Haggar of Moneycomms and Hannah Maundrell of Money.co.uk.

Welcome to the This is Money and Share Radio podcast, presented in partnership with NS&I. This week of course the top financial story was Philip Hammond’s first, and indeed last, Autumn Statement. Just what state are the country’s post-Brexit finances in, and crucially what would the Chancellor offer to help his much referenced ‘Jams’? In the end those ‘just about managing’ certainly received a few headline policies but with predictions pointing towards low growth, high borrowing and high inflation many argue Jam spending has been spread too thin. There were also some losers with those enjoying salary sacrifice perks and letting agents coming into the crosshairs, as well as in fact the Autumn Statement itself which will now be scrapped. So what will all this mean for the pound in your pocket? Georgie Frost joins editor Simon Lambert and reporter Becky Rutt to answer just that. Also on the agenda this week they discuss Black Friday and for a slightly different purchase the opportunity to buy a road legal Formula 1 car. This is Money is presented by Georgie Frost in partnership with NS&I.

Georgie Frost is joined in the studio by Share Radio's senior analyst Ed Bowsher. On the agenda today, they discuss the big story - today is Black Friday. Estimates suggest we could spend as much as 2-billion pounds in today's sales - which would make it the biggest shopping day of the year. But are the deals as good as they seem? Elsewhere, we're raking up debt at the fastest rate since 2008. Plus, despite many campaigns, two-thirds of households are yet to change energy providers, while three-quarters of homeowners lose thousands of pounds every year by failing to switch their mortgage. All these stories and more on The News Review.

Black Friday is on and bargain hunting shoppers may spend an estimated £2 billion trying to beat expected new year price rises. And according to the online retailing association IMRG, well over half the spend will be done online. So it might seem surprising to find that two old pre-internet age stores are being revived on the High Street. Safeway and Austin Reed are both staging a comeback, so Matt Cox has been hearing from Mintel’s Retail Analyst, Richard Perks, about the return of these old names.

Leading Chinese online travel agent Ctrip has agreed to acquire the price comparison site Skyscanner for approximately £1.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Skyscanner’s current management team will continue to manage its operations independently as part of the Ctrip group. Our correspondent in Scotland, Maurice Smith, has been looking into the deal.

Official figures from the British Bankers' Association (BBA) show that consumer credit expanded last month at the fastest pace in nearly ten years. Mortgage approvals meanwhile hit a five-month high. Alastair Douglas is the Chief of TotallyMoney.com, the price comparison site focusing on credit cards, loans and mortgages. Alastair has been digesting these latest borrowing trends and he joined Share Radio to delve into the findings.

When it first crossed the Atlantic, Black Friday was a one day affair when we sat back in amusement watching punch-ups over cheap TVs. Now, hundreds of household name retailers are already dangling Black Friday carrots in front of our noses. Last year, amazon.co.uk sold more than 7.4 million items on the day at a rate of 86 items per second and are expecting to beat that this year. Fergal Gara is a Director of Amazon UK, and he joined Share Radio Breakfast to discuss the event.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) on Thursday finished their annual analysis of the Autumn Statement, spending all night closely scouring the facts and figures to find out what the Chancellor is really saying. To get a grasp of the ins and outs of how the IFS saw the Autumn Statement, Matt Cox went along to the event to investigate.