YEAR OF TWO HALVES FOR CPL - There are full-year results from recruitment company CPL Resources this morning. Pre-tax profits were €20.7m, €1m above last year's figure.
CPL chief executive Anne Heraty said the year started with pre-tax profits up 45% in the first half, but in the second half CPL came under significant pressure from the weakening in the labour market.
Ms Heraty said there were fewer permanent jobs available and the August Live Register figures showed that this trend was likely to continue. She said firms tended to stop hiring permanent jobs first in a downturn.
Ms Heraty said we were in for a difficult 2009, but there was still reasonable demand in the IT sector and in some financial services areas.
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TOPAZ SAYS PETROL PRICES WILL FALL - The price of oil is coming down, but according to the Consumers Association of Ireland, petrol retailers have been slow to pass on the savings to motorists.
Frank Gleeson is retail director with Topaz, the company that has taken over the Statoil and Shell stations in Ireland. Mr Gleeson said prices were coming down, and this was being reflected in the pump. He said the trend was down, and he wanted to see consumers get a better prices.
Mr Gleeson said, however, that falls in the price of crude oil took time to feed through to petrol pumps, as the company usually paid the average price over a month.
