http://news.icm.ac.uk ICM Commercial & Business News | Breaking news, video, events, features, jobs and careers Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:33:26 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Industrial giant Siemens has announced plans to axe 4,200 jobs worldwide in order to simplify its business structure and make its IT business “fit for the future”. The company, which has a number of UK-based operations, said that 2,000 of the job losses would affect its German staff in Minch and ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/siemens-to-axe-4200-jobs-worldwide/6007/ Nissan has announced plans to build its new electric car – the Nissan Leaf – in Sunderland, creating 550 jobs and helping secure the jobs of 2,250 people across Nissan’s UK supply chain. The Leaf will be the UK’s first mass market electric car and production is expected to commence in ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/nissan-leaf-production-creates-550-jobs/6002/ The Co-operative Group has announced record 2009 annual financial results, with sales up 31% and a 38% growth in new customer bank accounts. The year saw the group acquire supermarket chain Somerfield to become the fifth largest retailer in the UK, with each of its 3,000 food stores in every postcode ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/retail/co-operative-group-2009-success/5998/ A folding plug designed to fold flat for easy transportation has been crowned the overall winner at the 2010 Brit Insurance Design Awards in London. British student Min-Kyu Choi beat off stiff competition from over 90 nominees to win the Brit Insurance Design of the Year 2010. Min-Kyu designed a folding ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/technology/folding-plug-wins-brit-insurance-design-award/5994/ The latest employment figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has drawn a mixed response as records show unemployment has fallen, but so has employment. The unemployment rate fell by 0.1% for the three months to January 2010, to 7.8%, the first quarterly fall since May 2008, and the number ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/mixed-response-to-uk-employment-statistics/5989/ Ireland has launched a competition – Your Country, Your Call – to “ignite imaginations and inspire thinking”, encouraging the public to put forward proposals that will secure prosperity and jobs in the country – and each of the two winners will receive €100,000. Launched by Irish President Mary McAleese, her husband ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/ireland%e2%80%99s-your-country-your-call/5984/ Oxford University Chancellor Lord Patten of Barnes has announced in a speech that university tuition fees should be uncapped to help meet the cost of teaching students and help to maintain the world-class status of universities such as Oxford. The former governor of Hong Kong said it was “preposterous” that institutions ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/leisure/lifestyle-and-culture/lord-patten-wants-university-tuition-fees-uncapped/5979/ For economic recovery to continue, UK employees need to hone their skills while employers should invest in more training, according to a report from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES). The National Strategic Skills Audit found that within the OECD, the UK has the lowest growth in highly skilled ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/skills-needed-for-recession-recovery/5975/ The Automobile Association (AA) is warning of a surge in petrol prices and is calling on the UK government to scrap the impending 3p rise in petrol duty due to come in on 1 April 2010. A 17% rise in European wholesale petrol prices since the end of January is threatening ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/retail/drivers-gloomy-at-record-petrol-price-prediction/5971/ Joint venture (JV) HETCo – Ferrovial Agroman and Laing O’Rourke – has officially signed the £812 million (€900m) deal with BAA to build its new Terminal 2 at London’s Heathrow Airport.  Under the contract – the largest construction job ever awarded by the airport operator – the joint venture will excavate ... http://news.icm.ac.uk/business/heathrow-terminal-2-contract-signed-by-baa-hetco/5962/