Sterling
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world. The occupation sector is no different, and as a result it is predicted that workers will not return to the office full time. A report conducted by the BBC suggested that 70% of the samples studied indicated that they would not be willing to return back to the office at the same rate; preference was to continue working from home either in full or have flexibility. This has resulted in senior managers raising concerns. A polling organisation working for the BBC found that senior leaders have stated that working from home permanently will damage the creativity and collaboration of their organisation. As a result, business directors and executive staff from firms such as Goldman Sachs, Apple etc… are refusing to give employees flexibility with Goldman Sachs labelling working from home as an ‘aberration’.
This is not only sector affected, the pandemic has caused backlogs in most government departments, applications are not being processed promptly anymore due to staff shortage and restrictions in work placement. Over the summer thousands of people who attained the age of 66 have applied for state pension but have not received any pay-outs. Consequently, pensioners have expressed their disappointment but more importantly their stress against the Department of work and pension as those that turned 66 had not received their state pension payouts, their entitlement that they inevitably gave and worked hard for. One such pensioner whilst expressing her anger used words ‘wanted to cry’ and ‘feeling that she did not count’. The government department has apologised for the delay.
Euro
Since countries are increasing the inoculation rates, the first European country to make a compulsory COVID-19 certificate for all workers is Italy. The Italian government announced that the Italian workers will face suspension and face pay cuts if they fail to show a valid certificate from mid-October. The certificate will show the person’s health record in relation to COVID-19. The initial purpose of the certificate was to assist intra-European travel but this has now been compulsory in Italy for entrance purposes into venues. Statistics shows that 73.8% of Italians are fully vaccinated against the virus. However, authorities want to avoid another surge in cases as the winter approaches. Italy’s health minister announced that he is expanding the green pass to the rest of the world to make places safer and to strengthen vaccination campaign. Protests were held in Italy against the use of green pass. However, there was support from trade unions and politicians as this would prevent further lockdowns and coronavirus had affected many sectors. Italy’s announcement triggered France to suspend 3,000 health workers for being unvaccinated against COVID-19. 12% of hospital staff and 6% of doctors in private practice were unvaccinated against COVID-19 according to the statics from French authorities. Vaccination was made compulsory in France for health workers by mid September. Similar measures have been taken by other EU nations: Greece announced mandatory vaccination for nursing and health workers. 80.7% and 71.5% of the population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in France and EU respectively.
Dollar
Although there are fears about the increase in coronavirus cases and supply chain issues, sales increased to 0.7% in August against the Dow Jones estimate of a decline of 0.8%. According to the labour Department, for the week ending 11 September, the weekly jobless claims increased to 332,000. Economics predicted that consumers cut their spending due the delta variant having the effect on US supply chain. Bars and restaurants’ sales were flattened due to the impact of pandemic although sales were 31.9% a year ago. However, the school shopping has made the sales jump as the schools are reopening this year. The retail jump was slightly affected by unemployment. The Federal Reserve will hold a meeting which will be run by policy makers in order to find the divisions about the way forward. Markets expects that the Fed will end the pandemic-era in the first session out of the two-day session. During the post meeting, the word “Tapering” will be the highlight of the day, and officers will release forecasts regarding interest rates, economic growth and inflation. All of this will be against the news which reported that stocks and bonds that could be adversely affected due to policy decisions have been traded by the Fed official. Recent speeches indicate that there is a division between people who say that the policy should be tightened now and people who prefer waiting for the policy to be changed.
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