Friday Brief Intro 18/11/2022
Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Friday Brief! What a wet week it has been! We hope that the weather hasn’t stopped you from shuffling into the festive spirit as the end of the year creeps closer!
To kick off our newsletter this week we would like to invite you to two webinars coming up next month from Croner. They will be covering HR and health & safety and specialised sessions including relevant legislation and key case law. Take a look at the story below for dates, times and a link to their website.
This week saw a significant announcement on the introduction of the UKCA and the use of the CE mark in Great Britain; billed as cutting costs for businesses and removing potential disruption, the government has announced that the CE mark will continue to be recognised for a further two years (through to the end of 2024). The new announcement also means that importers can continue to fix the UKCA mark by use of a label and on accompanying documents (rather than on the product itself) until the end of 2027. Find out more about this in our article below.
The Home Office are conducting an evaluation of the Right- to-Work Scheme. Employers must conduct Right-to-Work checks on all prospective employees. By participating in their research, businesses can raise any views they have on right to work checks and associated processes. Take a look at the story below to find out what this includes.
The Institute of Export and International Trade has launched a new Exporting Starter Pack Voucher Scheme see: Exporting Starter Pack Voucher | Introduction to Exporting Offer, which will provide £2,500 worth of free training through a series of six webinars commencing next week. Find out more about the scheme below.
Cranfield University believe the role of manufacturers has never been more important in making the sustainable changes we need to see in how we live day to day, how we travel and how we consume and power our activity. Manufacturing and Materials Week will give manufacturers an opportunity to reflect on what resource and energy efficiency might mean for them. Register your attendance and download the full event programme in the story.
The main headline this week, at least in terms of economics, is, of course, the Autumn Statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Other sources will have more than adequately covered the impact on the UK as individuals (tax rates and thresholds, energy bills, etc.) but we take a look at some of the detail that affects companies, especially those in the manufacturing technology spectrum that those sources probably haven’t mentioned.
There is a bumper bundle of other economic news this week as well, so we have split this into three parts covering the UK, Europe and the USA for ease of reading. The UK section rounds up the 3rd quarter economic data that came out last Friday covering investment and trade and also looks at the latest data on productivity.
For Europe we have the latest data on GDP and industrial production as well as a review of the new forecasts from the European Commission while the US section covers the latest trends for the machine tool and cutting tool market across “the pond”.
Finally, despite our best intentions to get the MTA Business Survey turned around more quickly this month, it is still open for your last minute input – the online form is at https://www.mta.org.uk/mta-business-survey-oct22 – please take a couple of minutes to give us your feedback if you have not already done so (and thanks to those who have).
That’s all we have for this week’s Friday Brief! Have an amazing weekend and we look forward to ‘seeing’ you again next week.
ECONOMIC NEWS – USA
USMTO and CTMR, September 2022: The US Manufacturing Technology Orders (USMTO) programme tracks orders in the US market, based on the reports from participants. In the first three-quarters of this year, total orders were worth $4.2 billion, +2.7% higher than in the same period in 2021 (January to September). We don’t usually comment on the […]
Read moreECONOMIC NEWS – EUROPE
European Industrial Production, September 2022: Last week we reported on the UK manufacturing output data and we now have the equivalent figures for Europe from Eurostat. However, these are compiled on a slightly different basis with Eurostat using industrial production; although this is mostly manufacturing output, it also includes energy production. Total industrial production increased […]
Read moreECONOMIC NEWS – UK
UK Investment, 3rd Quarter 2022: Among the package of data published last Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) were the figures for investment spending in the 3rd quarter. At this stage, we only have the high level data, with the breakdown by sector and industry to follow at a later date. Total business […]
Read moreSUMMARY OF THE ECONOMIC STATEMENT
This week, Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented the Government’s Autumn Statement – notably not a budget but designed mainly to instil some stability and confidence in the UK economy following the ill-fated “fiscal event” given by the previous resident of 11 Downing Street back in September. Many news channels will have covered much […]
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