Author: LoveWorld UK

British employers have put more than a million staff on temporary leave due to the coronavirus, finance minister Rishi Sunak said, reporting a flood of applications since the government’s costliest programme to support the economy opened. The scheme will pay 80% of employers’ wage bills until the end of June for staff suspended during the coronavirus lockdown, and it received 140,000 applications from firms in the first eight hours it was open on Monday. “The grants … will help pay the wages of more than a million people – a million people who if they hadn’t been furloughed would have…

The UK insurance industry has formed a steering committee comprising several top insurance company bosses who will work with government-backed terrorism reinsurance fund Pool Re to develop a pandemic cover, the group said on Tuesday. Britain is in a lockdown due to the coronavirus, with many companies shuttered and some facing the threat of collapse, while millions of workers have been furloughed as the country heads for a deep recession. The steering group, which is chaired by Stephen Catlin, the chief executive officer of specialist insurer and reinsurer Convex Group, will propose an industry pandemic response to both the government…

The price of a barrel of benchmark U.S. oil plunged below $0 a barrel on Monday for the first time in history, a troubling sign of an unprecedented global energy glut as the coronavirus pandemic halts travel and curbs economic activity. The contract for West Texas intermediate crude, or WTI, is the benchmark for U.S. crude oil prices. On Monday, it looked like this: WHAT DOES A NEGATIVE FUTURES PRICE MEAN? The price of a barrel of crude varies based on factors such as supply, demand and quality. Supply of fuel has been far above demand since the coronavirus forced…

Insurer Admiral (ADML.L) said on Tuesday it will return 110 million pounds to car and van policyholders who have heeded government advice to stay home and drive less during Britain’s coronavirus lockdown. The company said a refund of 25 pounds will be given to all customers for each car and van covered as at April 20, which amounts to a total of 4.4 million vehicles. Admiral said it was giving its customers the refund to reflect that there have been fewer cars on the road since Britain’s lockdown began on March 23 and it expected this to result in fewer…

Protests flared in U.S. states on Sunday over stay-at-home orders while governors disputed President Donald Trump’s claims they have enough tests for the novel coronavirus and should quickly reopen their economies. An estimated 2,500 people rallied at the Washington state capitol in Olympia to protest Democratic Governor Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order, defying a ban on gatherings of 50 or more people. Despite pleas from rally organizers to wear face coverings or masks as public health authorities recommend, many did not. “Shutting down businesses by picking winners and losers in which there are essential and non-essential are violations of the state…

Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her frustration in a party meeting on Monday that moves to edge Germany out of lockdown had led to “discussion orgies” in some regions that risked higher rates of coronavirus infection, German media reported. Some German retailers began reopening on Monday, along with car and bicycle dealers, and bookstores, under an agreement Merkel reached with state leaders last Wednesday. “Merkel complains about discussion orgies over opening”, ran a headline in mass-selling daily Bild’s online edition after the chancellor joined senior members of her Christian Democrats (CDU) in a video conference. The chancellor feared that a slowdown…

China dismissed as groundless on Monday Australia’s questioning of how Beijing handled the coronavirus pandemic, saying it had been open and transparent, despite growing scepticism about the accuracy of its official death toll. Australia’s foreign minister, Marise Payne, called for an international investigation into the origins and spread of the virus, joining a chorus of concern over how China tackled the virus that emerged in its central city of Wuhan last year. Since then the virus has caused nearly 2.4 million infections and more than 160,000 deaths worldwide, paralysing life and business in major cities. In Beijing, a foreign ministry…

Britain will review its approach to the coronavirus pandemic to learn what it could have done better, Culture Minister Oliver Dowden said on Monday, following criticism that the government was too slow to react. “When we’re dealing with an unprecedented crisis like this we’re not going to have perfect 20:20 hindsight vision on this,” he told BBC TV. “Of course we will need to look back and see the things we could have done differently. “But right now people would not be expecting us to be looking back over the past few months, they would be expecting us to be…

Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent said a recovery in Britain’s economy after the government relaxes its coronavirus lockdown might be held back by people remaining cautious. “I think it is certainly conceivable, it is certainly possible,” Broadbent said when asked about a possible rapid bounce back in the economy during an online presentation to businesses on Monday. “I think the question that we will have to think about is whether behavioural responses of people mean that even if the government-imposed lockdown is lifted, demand may remain weak in some areas just out of people’s natural caution.” Broadbent said…

Britain’s financial watchdog has proposed a repayment freeze for millions of consumers with auto finance contracts, goods bought on high-cost credit, and pawned belongings during the coronavirus pandemic. Britain extended a national lockdown on Thursday by a further three weeks to early May, with many businesses shut and millions of people furloughed or having to claim welfare as a deep and rapid recession beckons. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Friday it expects car leasing firms to provide a three-month payment freeze to customers who are having temporary difficulties meeting payments due to the coronavirus. “If customers are experiencing…