ONE THIRD OF SMEs TO HIRE OVER THE COMING MONTHS - Three out of 10 small firms aim to hire new staff in the coming months, with just 7% planning to cut numbers. Business and labour costs are among the key issues for bosses who will be forced to let staff go, the Small Firms Association (SFA) said, writes the Irish Independent. SFA director Patricia Callan warned Irish labour costs are still the 11th highest in Europe and 16% above the EU average. "In terms of hourly labour costs Ireland is 30.8% ahead of our nearest competitor, the UK, putting us at a distinct competitive disadvantage," she said. The SFA's latest jobs sentiment survey for the second half of the year showed a recruitment freeze will be enforced in the majority of firms, while some will offer permanent and temporary contracts. The level of lay-offs and reduction in employee hours has slowed. "There are sectors such as traded services and hospitality that are showing strong job growth, for other sectors job creation will be fragile and every step must be taken to ensure no additional taxes are placed on labour to ensure job retention and growth," said Ms Callan.
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WEDGWOOD CERAMICS COLLECTION MAY BE SOLD OFF TO FUND PENSIONS - One of the most important ceramics collections in the UK will be broken up and sold off in three months unless a public appeal can raise £2.74 million to safeguard its future. The Wedgwood Collection in Barlaston, Staffordshire, must raise the money by November 30th after attempts to find a legal solution to a pensions dispute failed, says the Irish Times. The collection of more than 80,000 works of art, ceramics, manuscripts, letters and pattern books records the 250- year history of the company founded by Josiah Wedgwood, the celebrated Enlightenment industrialist and innovator. Its treasures include Wedgwood’s Portland Vase, the pinnacle of the 18th-century potter’s art, as well as valuable paintings by George Stubbs and Reynolds. Stephen Deuchar, chief executive of the Art Fund, the national fundraising charity which launched the appeal yesterday, said the loss of the collection would be “tragic” in cultural and heritage terms. “Given that the threat of dispersal through auction is real and immediate, all that adds up to an urgent cause worth supporting,” he said. “It’s difficult to overstate the importance of this collection.” Unusually, the Wedgwood Museum became liable for a £134 million hole in the pension fund left by the Waterford Wedgwood company when it went into receivership in 2009.
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LOSSES CONTINUE TO MOUNT AT BONO AND ALI'S ETHICAL CLOTHING COMPANY - Losses continued to mount last year at the ethical clothing company founded by Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson. Figures lodged with the Companies Office show that Edun Apparel Ltd recorded a loss of $6.4m (€4.87m) in the 12 months to the end of December 2013. The loss last year followed losses of $7.88m in 2012 and $8.5m in 2011, reports the Irish Examiner. The two established the global fashion brand in 2005 in an effort to bring about positive change through its trading relationship with Africa and its positioning as a creative force in contemporary fashion. In spite of the losses, the report states that Bono, Ali and the firm’s other directors are confident “the company is continuing its development strategy of building the ‘Edun’ and ‘Edun Live’ brands, marketing and promoting the products and increasing the profitability of the company by improving margin and market share”. In an interview with Newstalk last year commenting on the business, Bono said: “The fashion business makes the music business look like a cake-walk. It is really, really complicated.”
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BURGERS AND BMWs HIGHLIGHT RISE OF NORTH KOREA'S PRIVATE ECONOMY - At the fast food bar in Pyongyang’s Munsu Water Park, a hamburger sells for 10,000 North Korean won - nominally equivalent to $76, three to five times a typical worker’s monthly wage. On an adjacent balcony, Ryang Gwang Jin sits in bathing shorts drinking beer with a friend, overlooking the swimming pool that opened last year as one of the North Korean regime’s most vaunted recent achievements. Mr Ryang, who says he is an intercity truck driver, paid Won20,000 for his entry ticket - but the 39-year-old seems unperturbed by the apparently extortionate price, as do the many boisterous families playing in the pool below.On a five-day visit by the Financial Times to one of the world’s most repressive regimes it was impossible to confirm how many of the hundreds of visitors had paid the full admission charge. But the lofty published prices at the Munsu park show the extent to which the rules of North Korea’s private economy have pervaded many areas of life in the country. Informal markets took off after a severe famine in the 1990s, and have supplanted the state as the main source of livelihood for two-thirds of people, estimates Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea at Seoul’s Kookmin University. Prices in these markets far exceed what would be expected based on official monthly salaries of a few thousand won a month. Now state amenities appear to be following suit. The Munsu entry fee might be a fortune at the official exchange rate of Won132 to the dollar but that figure is meaningless in the country’s black market, where a rate of about Won 8,000 applies.
