Cheers & jeers

This week's three cheers go to Virgin One account for its plans to create 300 jobs prompted by the growth in popularity of its all-in-one mortgage and current account.

The group, which is wholly owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, is opening a new customer service centre in Horwich, near Bolton, to provide services for its 82,000 account holders. The bank is also planning to recruit 150 extra staff for its main operational base in Norwich.

Praises too, for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile which is offering 200 call centre jobs, to staff its head office at Trowbridge, near Bath. The recruitment drive will take Virgin Mobile's total headcount up to nearly 1,500.

Applaud the UK firm Foster Wheeler which has won a £60m contract to build onshore gas processing facilities expected to create up to 400 jobs. The contract is to build facilities at the St Fergus terminal for Shell UK's Goldeneye venture in the outer Moray Firth.

And a pat on the back for the defence firm MBDA which has won a £220m contract to supply a short range air defence system to Malaysia. The deal has safeguarded at least 1,000 jobs at MBDA's sites in Lostock in Greater Manchester and Stevenage in Hertfordshire.

Direct your jeers at Consignia bosses for inflicting more misery by announcing that up to a third of the present 9,000-strong network of post offices could be closed under the restructuring.

The Post Office says that there are "simply too many" branches in many towns and cities. Consignia has this week posted the bad news letters to all sub-postmasters.

Jeer bigoted employers after new TUC research showed that black and Asian male workers earned an average of £97 a week less than their white counterparts.

The pay gap was even more alarming within different ethnic communities, with Pakistani and Bangladeshi men earning £150 a week less than white workers.

The TUC says that a legal duty in the public sector to promote good race relations should be extended to private employers.

Reserve some of your sneers for executives at steelmaker Corus which has awarded a 130% bonus to one of its bosses after 6,000 workers lost their jobs.

Jeers too for Phil White , chief executive of National Express, and Bob Davies , chief executive of Arriva, who have each pulled in a £200,000 bonus, against the backdrop of industrial action over pay at both firms.