News

Men and women will soon have the right to know if they are being paid differently based on gender. Employers will have to show the differences in the pay of male and female staff under the Government’s proposed gender pay gap legislation, due to be published in the coming weeks. Any differences in the pay […]

Consumer spending rose last month, marking 14 successive months of growth as an improving economy continued to feed into jobs and disposable incomes. The Visa Irish Consumer Spending Index, which measures expenditure across cash, cheques and electronic payments, rose 3.8pc in April compared to a year earlier. That was an acceleration of the 1.5pc rise […]

This is something I have been saying for a long time. There is a very strong future role for physical retailers if owners ensure that the customer’s visit has a high level of experiential retail within it. In Superquinn we always tried to deliver the unexpected. On Mother’s Day, each of our checkout operators would […]

In a rising economy, when consumer demand increases, prices go up. In contrast, regrettably, we often see levels of customer service going down as businesses focus on quick profits. How many times have you heard stories of service providers not calling the customer back after an initial enquiry? A close friend is in the market […]

A single person is putting in an average of 86 days of work – which would take you from January 1 into the middle of May – just to afford the annual rent on a one-bedroom home. Soaring rental costs year-on-year mean that workers are being forced to put aside every cent they earn to […]

Q I am 27 and have just returned from working abroad in the fashion industry. My parents have a retail shop unit in a poor location, but have given it to me at cheap rent. Sales are abysmal, as the footfall I need isn’t in the area. Do you think I can build up the […]

Enterprise Ireland is aiming to increase Irish exports to the Asia Pacific region by 50pc by 2020. Over the past five years, exports to the Asia-Pacific region from Ireland more than doubled since breaking the €1bn mark in 2012, delivering double-digit growth for Enterprise Ireland clients in 2016 with a 16pc year-on-year gain. As part […]

Loans from Linked Finance to Irish small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have passed the €50m mark. The milestone coincides with the peer-to-peer lending platform celebrating five years in business. Launched by Peter O’Mahony in 2013, with the aim of using technology to connect SMEs looking for finance with lenders keen to back Irish businesses while […]

The Central Bank here is to launch simulated cyberattacks on banks, to stress test the resilience of the sector to sophisticated hacking. The attacks will conform to an ECB framework for controlled and bespoke tests against cyberattacks in the financial market based on earlier models developed in the UK and the Netherlands. It is not […]

The fDi Top 25 ‘European Cities and Regions of the Future’ for 2018 have been revealed, and despite concerns around Brexit, London has taken the top spot. Meanwhile Dublin has climbed to 2nd place, the 13th issue of the Dublin Economic Monitor reveals. Dublin’s improved performance knocks Paris into third. This, along with other key […]