One In Three Make A Loss According to the latest report from Plimsoll, 1 in 3 companies in the window and door industry in the UK are making a loss. Plimsoll assess 1000 companies to compile it's report, with results saying the 328 are making a loss. Though the report does point out that a [...]
It has been well publicised over the last year or so how badly the construction sector of our economy has fared. According the Office For National Statistics (ONS): The total volume of construction output in the first quarter of 2012 fell by 4.8 per cent compared with the fourth quarter of 2011 (constant prices, seasonally [...]
We have had a bit of bad news over the last week. First the confirmation that Britain is back in recession (though I would like to add that we won't in recession for long), and then we got news that a big window company in Devon, Launa Windows, has gone into administration. Demonstrating that market [...]
GDP figures out this morning show a 0.2% dip in the first quarter to the end of March, following a previous reduction in GDP in the last quarter. All this means a disastrous double-dip recession. Over the last few months, the general feel has been that things may not have been as bad as many [...]
Gamers will be very sad to hear the news that yet another High Street chain has gone into administration; Game Group. The group owns both the Game and Gamestation stores and has 1300 stores throughout Europe, with 609 in the UK. Administration means potential job losses for 10,000 staff. The administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers said that the [...]
In May, the coalition Government will be two years old. And in those two years they have implemented a deficit reduction plan that has stifled the spending power of the people in this country. It's making people poorer, it's frozen wages, it's reduced profit margins. You can blame Labour for spending too much in previous [...]
We live in tough times. The Government is slashing left, right and centre. Fuel costs are at an all time high. Public spending is down. People focusing on debt repayment rather than spending on credit. All this means harsher trading conditions for businesses than we are used to. Is it then, too much to expect [...]
The tough economic conditions continue to bite, as Oakworth Joinery in Keighley has gone into administration, putting 170 jobs at risk. Oakworth Joinery has traded since 1965 in the West Yorkshire area, being one of the UK's biggest independent timber window and door manufacturers. Oakworth's administrator John Russell confirmed that there had been a buyer [...]
This looks like the first bit of major bad news for the glass area of our industry. Pilkington have announced that they are to shut one of it's three UK production lines in an effort to save on costs. Pilkington's Japanese owners, NSG, are looking to cut 3500 jobs worldwide. Pilkington employ 300o people in [...]
>Argos down 8.8%. Thorntons down 4.2%. Halfords down 4.8%. Mothercare down 3%.Just yet another indication of how bad the retail sector has suffered over the last 12-18 weeks. Some have suffered so bad that they have gone into administration, like Blacks and La Senza. The two most striking figures to come out of today's splurge [...]
>2011 was a very tough year for the high-street. It never seemed to be out of the news. Either someone was in administration, or someone was about to go into administration.I found a website which lists the retailers that have gone over the course of 2011. Warning, the list below is a bit of a [...]
>HMV announced figures today that in the 5 weeks leading up to Christmas in 2011, sales were down 8.2% in comparison to the same 5 weeks in the year before.You know things are bad when the company itself is saying that it may not be around in the coming few months! However according to reports, [...]
>Social media sights and blogs are full of companies stating how well they seem to be doing. It's been like this all the way through the recession years. Now some of these bits of information are probably going to be true, despite no-one being brave enough yet to post any figures to back up what [...]
>It was announced today that for the second time, high street shoe retailers Barratt's is to go into administration, putting nearly 4000 jobs at risk.The first time their owners went into administration they had to reduce the number of stores by 220 from 380. In total the brand has 191 stores throughout the UK on [...]
>Everyone seems to have an opinion on the strikes that happened last Wednesday. So here's mine, and I'll try and keep this as swift as possible. On a subject like this it's easy to get carried away!For me, striking at a time when the country is struggling to get it's economy back on track is [...]
>It seems the growing trend to protest this year has now spread to our own little sector of the economy. It is reported on BBC Devon that Total Windows and DB Glass, both owned by the Epwin Group, are to go on strike over pay - more specifically due to not having a pay rise [...]
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