Maintenance Technician |
| Broder Bros., Co. is a leading distributor of imprintable sportswear and accessories in the United S... |
|
Maintenance Supervisor |
| Description
The Maintenance Supervisor is responsible for the safe & efficient upkeep of the ... |
|
Private Estate Maintenance Technician |
| Employer in Long Beach is seeking an experienced maintenance and grounds technician to manage the ... |
|
Groundskeeper |
| Groundskeeper Church of the Chimes is currently hiring a groundskeeper to maintain our 5 acre ... |
|
Maintenance Supervisor- The Met |
| Description:
?
Supervises and coordinates the daily maintenance operations of an apartment ... |
|
Project Manager |
|
The Learning Care Group, parent company to Childtime/Tutortime Learning Centers, is ... |
|
Maintenance Tech II |
|
Do you have plumbing, electrical, painting and carpentry skills and desire to work a for a ... |
|
General Maintenance Worker |
| The Los Angeles County Museum of Art seeks a General Maintenance Worker. The incumbent ... |
|
Chief Engineer |
| Countrywide Financial Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, is a nationwide financial ... |
|
Groundskeeper/Porter for Archstone in Pasadena |
| Looking for a really nice environment you can be proud to work in? If you are a person with a ... |
|
|
Why UK consumers are on a spending spree
|
The fact that we're in the midst of a global recession, that jobs are being cut nationwide on a daily basis and that interest rates can't fall much further, doesn't seem to have distracted UK shoppers from hitting the high street in recent weeks.
Buoyant consumer spending, as well as an unexpectedly firm market in house prices, are the reasons behind the Bank's of England's decision to hold interest rates this afternoon.
It seems consumers are the elbow propping up the UK economy, as the manufacturing and services sector show little improvement and job losses continue.
Part of the reason for such consumer confidence is down to the nation's 16.6m homeowners, who are feeling flush with cash after seven interest rate cuts this year have cut about ?100 a month of a ?60,000 mortgage.
With nearly 70% of UK property bought rather than rented, mortgage rates make a big difference to consumer spending, and the current mortgage rates akin to those last seen in the '60s have left consumers feeling confident.
Following the September 11 attacks, consumers did initially shy away from the high-street amid fears of a recession, which seemed partly confirmed by October data showing house price growth grinding to a halt.
However, last month the Bank of England cut rates by an unexpected 0.5%, house prices took another turn upwards and consumers headed back to the shops with the pressing thought of Christmas uppermost in their minds.
What is difficult to tell is how long the consumer will continue to prop up the economy once the usual flurry of spending around the festive season comes to an end.
Certainly consumers are set to spend more this Christmas than ever, with most of it going on credit cards, but this could be part psychological as fears that the economy will suffer further next year could be resulting in a case of 'spend while you can'.
The New Year could well see such extravagant spending slow down as people gear up for a rocky ride, what with the likelihood of growing unemployment coupled with the post-Christmas hangover of mounting debts to pay off.
Certainly analysts seem divided on how the Bank of England will need to react next year.
"Consumer spending in particular is seasonally buoyed which may make the extent of the economic slowdown and the effect of the cuts to date hard to judge," said Ian McCafferty, chief economic adviser at the Confederation of British Industry.
Much of the consumer spend in January is also at the mercy of the weather. An unusually warm winter so far has meant that the clothing sector has suffered as the usual rush for winter coats and hats has failed to take place.
Unless the frost sets in for the New Year, consumers may well choose to put their purses away and start squirreling rather than spending.
|
| Related press releases |
Cable alerts FSA to worries about Spanish group's corporate governance
Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, waded into the Abbey National takeover debate yesterday by warning the City regulator of his concerns about Banc...
|
|
Homeowners told house prices could fall by 30%
Britain's homeowners were warned by a senior member of the Bank of England's interest-rate committee yesterday to brace themselves for the "significant probability" that ...
|
|
Not a happy lot
Alistair is a 21-year-old police constable. He has five credit cards - a Barclaycard, a Lloyds Platinum card and three store cards. He says that this is 'too many' and tr...
|
|
Student needs to stretch her funds
Beccy, 21, is about to become a student and wants to avoid getting into debt. She writes:
'I will be starting a degree at art college in London in October. I left home o...
|
|
Valuable advice on how to crack the safe problem
Anyone who owns a house, has a mortgage, life assurance, holds a passport and has some shares, will have accumulated copious amounts of paperwork. The need to keep it all...
|
|
Rates on hold as consumer spending goes off the boil
The Bank of England left interest rates steady at 4.75% yesterday amid speculation in the City that it would not raise them again this year as evidence grows that consume...
|
|
Bank holds interest rates steady
The Bank of England kept interest rates unchanged at 4.75% today amid signs that the housing market has cooled as a result of steadily rising borrowing costs.
Today's de...
|
|
Soft touch
A month ago, the nine members of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee voted unanimously to raise interest rates, to slow the economy down. Tomorrow at noon, wh...
|
|
Bovis predicts cooling of house prices
The construction firm Bovis today predicted a falling off of property prices as it reported a 46% rise in first-half profits.
The company said pre-tax profits in the six...
|
|
Six ways to profit from your plastic
Credit cards have a bad reputation for getting their owners into debt. According to the latest figures from market analysts Datamonitor, every cardholder has an average d...
|
|
|
|