We are told that the country is rich in oil. But I don't see that wealth in my daily life. Look at Pointe-Noire, formerly nicknamed as Ponton la Belle [Beautiful Pointe-Noire]. Today, the city is unrecognisable. Around the Grand Marche, the main roads are potholed, and when it rains, the streets get flooded, making it almost impossible to drive.
Job vacancies in Britain have fallen to their lowest level in five years, with graduate recruitment bearing the brunt as employers contend with higher payroll costs and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. Data from Adzuna show that advertised vacancies dropped to 694,940 in January, down 16 per cent year-on-year and 3 per cent compared with December. It is the first time since January 2021 that the number of vacancies has dipped below 700,000.
Finding full time employment in the capital is particularly tough right now. 7.2 per cent of people are unemployed in the capital, a level last seen during the early months of the pandemic. That's up from 5.4 per cent in June 2024, before Labour came into power. Unemployment in London has risen faster than in any other region, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics.
It hasn't been the easiest year to land a job, and in 2026, the employment landscape will likely remain just as volatile. Managers will be grappling with how to deploy AI in their businesses and what skills they really need on the team to bring about efficiencies. Companies will also be wrangling with policy headwinds such as tariffs and the normalization of the base rate, as well as how consumer spending will hold up through the rest of the year.
Two coups and one foiled coup within eight weeks constitute a new dimension even for Africa's recent history. In October, the military in Madagascar deposed the president after weeks of protests. Then in November, soldiers in Guinea-Bissau deposed the head of state shortly after what they considered to be a rigged election. In early December, a group of soldiers calling themselves the "Military Committee for Renewal" announced a takeover in Benin.
It's "entirely plausible" the hospitality sector could lose a further 100,000 workers as a result of the Autumn Budget, according to its trade body. UKHospitality claims the risk stems from minimum wage rises, the introduction of a tourist tax and an overhaul of business rates. Its chief executive Allen Simpson says he is particularly worried about the impact on youth employment, as the sector has already shed an estimated 100,000 jobs since the Budget of October 2024, "including many early career opportunities".
If you ask Jodeah Wilson how his life got off track, he'll say it's all about money. He needs money for November rent. He also needs money to pay back the tuition he owes for the spring semester at Sacramento State University, which would allow him to re-enroll. Until then, he's stuck in limbo. "All I need is a goddamn job so I can pay this off myself," he said. But it's been months and so far, he's still unemployed.
Almost a million young people are not in education, employment or training. Employers are freezing their hiring plans. Unemployment is at a four-year high. Not all is right in the UK's jobs market, and the outlook is getting worse. Typically it takes a full-blown recession to trigger the type of growth in unemployment that Britain is witnessing today. About 100,000 jobs have been lost from company payrolls in the past year, and the official jobless rate has hit 4.8%, up from 4.1% a year earlier.
The challenging U.S. labor market is entering a new normal, according to Goldman Sachs economists David Mericle and Pierfrancesco Mei, who tackled the phenomenon of "jobless growth" in an October 13 note. It resonates with what Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell memorably described in September as a " low-hire, low-fire " labor market and the fact that, for some reason, "kids coming out of college and younger people, minorities, are having a hard time finding jobs."
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
