New Zealand Jobless Rate Hits Nine-Year High In Weak Economy

Gold Consolidates as Dollar Strength and Fed Uncertainty Trigger Market Pause

Technical Pullback or Start of Broader Correction?

Long-Term Drivers Remain Intact

Source: Bloomberg

Reeves to Confront Tax Rise Speculation as Budget Deadline Nears

Tension Between Political Promises and Economic Constraints

Strategic Timing and Market Signaling

Risk of Political Backlash and Manifesto Breach

Economic Reality Forces Labour’s Hand

Source: CNBC

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves will meet CEOs from top insurers in Downing Street on Wednesday, as she seeks to encourage more investment in the City ahead of a tricky budget later this month.

The meeting, whose attendees will include Lloyds of London Chair Charles Roxburgh, Swiss Re AG CEO Andreas Berger and Hiscox Ltd CEO Aki Hussain, will focus on "opportunities for more investment in the London market" and Reeves will highlight recent "cuts to financial red tape," according to a statement from the Treasury.

Reeves' engagement with insurers comes just weeks before a crunch budget on Nov. 26, where she's expected to deliver a package of tax hikes and spending cuts to stabilize Britain's public finances. Reeves, who has faced criticism over the impact of tax rises at her last budget on UK business, is keen to stress her ongoing efforts to spur the British economy ahead of the budget, and her talks with insurers signal growth is her "top priority," the Treasury said.

Other attendees at Wednesday's meeting in 11 Downing Street will include Allianz UK CEO Colm Homes, Beazley Plc CEO Adrian Cox, and Jason Storah, Aviva's CEO of UK & Ireland General Insurance.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

Employers have been told in a landmark government review that fixing Britain's health-related worklessness crisis will require them to spend £6bn a year on support for their staff.

In a major report before this month's budget, Charlie Mayfield warned that businesses needed to play a more central role in tackling a rising tide of ill-health that is pushing millions of people out of work.

The former chair of John Lewis, who was appointed by ministers to lead the government's Keep Britain Working review last year, said that a drastic expansion in occupational health was needed to help prevent hundreds of thousands of people from falling out of the workforce each year.

"We need to fix this," Mayfield told the Guardian. "What we are proposing is a fundamental reset in terms of how health is handled in the workplace. We're saying we have to move from [a] situation where, for most people, health is for the individual and NHS – we have to move from that position to one where health becomes a true partnership between employers, employees and the health services generally.

"That is not a small move, but a big move, and a fundamental shift."

Ministers have grown increasingly alarmed over a dramatic rise in the number of working-age adults falling out of the workforce due to health conditions over recent years, with young adults fuelling much of the increase.

As many as one in five working-age adults – more than 9 million in total – are now in a position termed by statisticians as "economically inactive", where they are neither in a job nor looking for one. For almost 3 million, the main reason is long-term sickness – the highest level on record.

In his highly anticipated report, Mayfield said the overall cost to the UK economy from this "quiet but urgent crisis" was as much as £85bn a year, in a financial blow for the exchequer, businesses and individuals.

Ministers have been focused on cutting a sharp increase in the cost of providing health-related welfare support. The report said the cost from economic inactivity due to ill-health was "unsustainable" for the state, through lost output, increased spending on welfare, and additional burdens on the NHS.

However, the focus of Mayfield's report is to tackle the rise in costs by helping individuals to stay in a job with help from a drastically improved system of workplace support.

He said a new approach to health at work was required whereby the responsibility was shared between employers, employees and the government to help slash rates of sickness absence, improve return-to-work rates, and drive up the disability employment rate.

The report found a potential benefit of up to £18bn a year for the economy and exchequer if the recommendations were applied across the workforce.

The government said more than 60 employers – including household names like British Airways, Nando's and Tesco – would take on Mayfield's recommendations in a vanguard programme over the next three years.

It said the scheme, which also involves regional mayors and dozens of small businesses from across the country, would act as early adopters to develop stronger approaches to workplace health.

Asking businesses to take on a more proactive approach could however prove contentious at a time when business groups have sounded the alarm that Labour's tax changes and employment policies have made it tougher to hire staff.

Bosses have warned the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, against hitting firms with tax increases in her 26 November budget after her £25bn increase in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) last year.

Mayfield acknowledged businesses were facing a tough environment, but said companies could see the benefits from investing in employee health and that growing provisions further was a "win-win" for firms and the economy at large.

"Employers must be in the lead. Some may resist that message amid tight margins and slow growth. But many already recognise they are carrying the cost of ill-health every day," he said.

His report recommended firms were likely to face a cost of £5-15 per employee per month to provide improved levels of occupational health – at an annual cost of about £6bn when spread across the economy at large.

For some firms, this would mark a sharp rise in spending. However, others, particularly larger employers, already spend significant sums on workplace health.

Over time, Mayfield said he envisaged the workplace health schemes provided by employers becoming certified by the government, being integrated with the NHS app and reducing – or even replacing – the need for fit notes issued by healthcare professionals.

Among other recommendations, Mayfield's review also called on ministers to consider incentivising businesses to invest in workplace health through tax cuts and rebates for paying sick pay to employees.

Source: GUARDIAN

A lawmaker defected from Canada's opposition Conservative Party to the governing Liberals, a move that helps Prime Minister Mark Carney's minority government pass its first federal budget in an upcoming vote.

Chris d'Entremont, who represents the riding of Acadie-Annapolis in the eastern province of Nova Scotia, joined the Liberals after reviewing the federal budget they presented Tuesday. As a Conservative, he won his seat in April's closely fought federal election with just 1.1% more of the vote than the Liberal candidate.

"After five years of serving in opposition, the people of Acadie-Annapolis and all Canadians know that the moment we face today needs all of us to lead — not with complaint, but with confidence in a strong future," d'Entremont was quoted as saying in a Liberal Party statement.

A representative for the Conservative Party confirmed that d'Entremont had resigned from the party. D'Entremont himself did not respond to requests for comment.

Carney is now two seats short of a majority in Parliament, leaving him needing support from fewer lawmakers in other parties to vote for his legislation or abstain — or, as in this case, to bring them into his party.

Failure to pass major legislation such as the budget is considered a crisis of confidence and can trigger a new election.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

Mori Trust Co. is looking for overseas partners to launch condominiums in Japan that can be rented out like hotel rooms, its chief executive officer said, as the company seeks to profit from the nation's tourism boom.

The developer, one of the two companies descended from the Mori real estate empire, has said it will invest ¥1.2 trillion ($7.8 billion) in projects through the fiscal year starting April 2030. A move into condo hotels is part of that spending plan. Those are condominiums typically with luxury hotel-like facilities — such as concierge desks and room service — that owners can rent out when they are away.

"We'll be working with foreign hotel operators, and we're thinking not only about urban areas but also regional properties" including resorts, said Miwako Date, the closely held Tokyo-based company's president and CEO. She declined to comment further on potential partners.

Mori Trust is trying to reap more profits by getting deeper into businesses that benefit from a jump in tourists traveling to Japan. The nation has already seen more than 30 million visitors in the year through September, the most ever for the period, according to Japan National Tourism Organization data. The government's goal is to attract 60 million visitors annually by 2030.

The developer has collaborated with Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., opening a condo hotel in the southern island prefecture of Okinawa in 2021 with the US hotel operator.

Condo hotels, one of Mori Trust's target investments, have been around for several decades in the US. They gained popularity in the early 2000's, but demand weakened around 2008 as the global financial crisis raged, according to real estate advisory firm Luxury Hospitality Advisors. Real estate firms selling the properties have generally targeted wealthy investors, pitching units as second homes on which buyers can earn extra rental income.

Date is the granddaughter of company founder Taikichiro Mori, an economics professor who made a successful career change to real estate development that at one point made him the world's richest person in the early-1990's according to Forbes magazine. Miwako Date took over as CEO from her father, Akira Mori, in 2016, according to the company's website.

One of the major challenges facing Japan's real estate industry is the rising cost of construction, as inflation nears decades-high levels reached earlier this year. The average price of building materials jumped by 37% as of August compared with January 2021, while total construction costs including labor expenses rose by 25-29% during the period, according to Japan Federation of Construction Contractors data.

Mori Trust has been trying to respond to rising costs by looking for ways to reduce expenditures and improve product quality, the CEO said.

"We've been doing checks like that over and over, but even as we do that, costs keep on going up," Date said. "It's like a cat-and-mouse game."

The developer is aiming for operating profit of ¥70 billion on sales of ¥330 billion by fiscal 2030, from ¥30.3 billion in profit and ¥140.2 billion in revenue in fiscal 2016 when it released its mid- to long-term business plan. That compares with operating income of ¥372.7 billion in the fiscal year ended March at Mitsui Fudosan Co., a top listed Japanese real estate firm.

Mori Trust has developed 35 hotels in Japan including Conrad Tokyo and the Tokyo Edition, Ginza, and office buildings such as Marunouchi Trust Tower Main and North in the Japanese capital's banking district.

Date said that while the office real estate market is doing well, sharp increases in rents aren't really possible. It's easier to pass on higher building costs to hotel customers, "so what we're looking at is how much new hotel development should occupy our portfolio," she said.

Source: Bloomberg Europe