Wednesday newspaper round-up: Tesco, UK growth, Boeing, Carillion
Tesco is facing a demand for up to £4bn in back pay from thousands of mainly female shopworkers in what could become the UK’s largest ever equal pay claim. A law firm has launched legal action on behalf of nearly 100 shop assistants who say they earn as much as £3 an hour less than male warehouse workers in similar roles. Up to 200,000 shopfloor staff could be affected by the claim, which could cost Tesco up to £20,000 per worker in back pay over at least six years. – Guardian
Economic growth in the UK is poised to rebound this year after a slowdown in 2017, as a strong global performance offsets the impact from the Brexit vote, a leading economic forecaster has said. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the strength of the world economy and the benefit for British exporters from the weak pound would help increase GDP growth by almost 2% this year and next – which was higher than many other forecasts. – Guardian
Aerospace giants Airbus and Boeing have used Singapore’s Airshow to flag their confidence in the demand for airliners, hinting they may accelerate production of bestselling jets. Eric Schulz, Airbus’s new sales chief, hinted work on the company’s A320 family of single-aisle airliners could ramp up. “The success of the product is forcing us to look at any opportunities we have to improve the rate,” he said. “We have not come to any conclusion but it is something we are looking at very closely.” - Telegraph
Shares in Snapchat’s parent company skyrocketed on Tuesday night as it surpassed revenue expectations, a welcome relief for the messaging app after a trying first year on Wall Street. Snap revealed that sales had climbed 72pc year-on-year in the final quarter of 2017, significantly above forecasts, while users of its appgrew at the fastest rate for more than a year. – Telegraph
The directors of Carillion, the failed construction company, have been condemned as “delusional” after details emerged of a desperate plan to save it early this year which involved a demand for a £160 million bailout using taxpayers’ money. After intense and often hostile hearings of a joint select committee, MPs concluded that Carillion was a business “built on sand” with directors blaming everyone other than themselves. – The Times
The price of bitcoin reversed early losses yesterday, despite one of the world’s leading central bankers calling the cryptocurrency a Ponzi scheme and urging politicians to ban it. Agustín Carstens, general manager at the Bank for International Settlements, the talking shop for top central bankers and regulators, said that there was a “strong case” for new rules to clamp down on the use of the virtual currency before it gained mainstream acceptance. – The Times