Category: 3. Business

Nearly 1,000 British workers will adopt a permanently shorter working week, after the latest trial of a four-day week and similar changes to traditional working patterns.

All 17 British businesses in a six-month trial of the four-day week said they would continue with an arrangement consisting of either four days a week or nine days a fortnight. All the employees remained on their full salary.

The trial was organised by the 4 Day Week Foundation, a group campaigning for more businesses to take up shorter working weeks.

The latest test follows a larger six-month pilot in 2022, involving almost 3,000 employees, which ended in 56 of 61 companies cutting down their hours from a five-day working week.

The 4 Day Week Foundation is hoping to build on the shift around the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, when campaigns led by trade unions gave birth to the two-day weekend. The previous norm for many people in Britain and other traditionally Christian countries had been a six-day working week, with time off only on Sundays.

Campaigners and some economists argue that the four-day week can offer benefits to workers such as less strain on their mental health, and to businesses, including more motivated staff and easier recruitment and retention.

Researchers at Boston College, a US university, said that the findings from the latest trial were “extremely positive” for workers. They found that 62% of workers reported that they experienced less burnout during the trial, according to a poll of 89 people. Forty-five percent of those polled said they felt “more satisfied with life”.

The 4 Day Week Foundation has run successive trials to gather data and demonstrate how companies can make the switch. In January, the foundation said more than 5,000 people from a previous wave had started the year permanently working a four-day week.

Companies involved in the latest trial, which started in November, included charities and professional services firms, with the number of employees at each employer ranging between five and 400. They included the British Society for Immunology and Crate Brewery in Hackney, east London,

Campaigners hope that they can build momentum for the change. The 4 Day Week Foundation said the government should create a working time council to coordinate policy between business and industry leaders as well as trade unions.

The concept of the four-day week faced strong opposition from the previous Conservative government. Labour ministers have previously expressed more support for the concept, although they have offered little in the way of formal recognition since coming to power in 2024.

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In 2023, Angela Rayner, who has since become deputy prime minister, said: “If you can deliver within a four-day working week, then why not. I think people will cotton on to the fact that it’s really good, if it works for their sector and boosts productivity.”

The small web software company BrandPipe said that the latest trial had been a success for the business, coinciding with increased sales. Geoff Slaughter, the BrandPipe chief executive, said: “The trial’s been an overwhelming success because it has been the launchpad for us to consider what constitutes efficiency, and financial performance is double what it was before.”

Slaughter added: “If we’re going to see it rolled out more substantially across different sectors, there should be incentives for early adopters, because we’re creating the blueprint for the future.”

MANILA, Philippines — Asian shares mostly gained on Thursday after U.S. stocks hit another all-time high.

U.S. futures edged up while oil prices fell.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 inched up 0.1% to 39,794.16. In South Korea, the Kospi added 1% to 3,106.46, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.1% to 8,589.30.

The Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 1% to 23,976.41. The Shanghai Composite index edged up 0.1% to 3,57.36.

Taiwan’s TAIEX surged 1.4% while India’s Sensex rose 0.3%

Mizuho Bank, Ltd., in a commentary, said there is lopsided optimism about Vietnam’s deal with the US, with Vietnamese imports subject to 20% tariffs in return for 0% tariffs on U.S. goods.

“A higher 40% tariff on goods deemed to be transshipped via Vietnam could accentuate risks to and from China,” it said, adding that “other Asian economies will be particularly vulnerable to a two-sided geoeconomic squeeze given that their reliance on both China and U.S. are significant.” President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he reached a deal with Vietnam, where U.S. products sold in the country will face zero tariffs and Vietnamese-made goods will face a U.S. tariff of 20%. That helped companies that import lots of things from Vietnam, including Nike, whose stock rose 4.1%. Factories in Vietnam made half of all Nike brand footwear in its fiscal year of 2024. The S&P 500 rose 0.5% and set a record for the third time in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down by 10 points, or less than 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.9%.

Tesla helped drive the market higher and rose 5% after saying it delivered nearly 374,000 of its Model 3 and Model Y automobiles last quarter. That was better than analysts expected, though the electric-vehicle maker’s overall sales fell 13% from a year earlier.

Worries have been high that CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in politics is turning off potential Tesla buyers.

Constellation Brands climbed 4.5% despite reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It pointed to slowing growth for jobs in the construction industry and other “4000 calorie+” sectors, which tends to hurt demand for its beer.

But the company selling Modelo beer and Robert Mondavi wine nevertheless stuck with its financial forecasts for the full upcoming year.

They helped offset a 40.4% drop for Centene. The health care company withdrew its forecasts for profit this year after seeing data that suggests worse-than-expected sickness trends in many of the states where it does business. It was the worst day for the stock since its debut in 2001.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 29.41 points to 6,227.42. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 10.52 to 44,484.42, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 190.24 to 20,393.13.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were mixed ahead of a highly anticipated report on Thursday, which will show how many jobs U.S. employers created and destroyed last month. The widespread expectation is that they hired more people than they fired but that the pace of hiring slowed from May.

A stunningly weak report released Wednesday morning raised worries that Thursday’s report may fall short. The data from ADP suggested that U.S. employers outside the government cut 33,000 jobs from their payrolls last month, when economists were expecting to see growth of 115,000 jobs.

The ADP report does not have a perfect track record predicting what the U.S. government’s more comprehensive jobs report will say each month. That preserves hope that Thursday’s data could be more encouraging. But a fear has been that uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s tariffs could cause employers to freeze their hiring.

Many of Trump’s stiff proposed taxes on imports are currently on pause, and they’re scheduled to kick into effect in about a week. Unless Trump reaches deals with other countries to lower the tariffs, they could hurt the economy and worsen inflation.

Other factors could also be dragging on the job market, such as the U.S. government’s termination of protected status for 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially exposing them to deportation. That alone could create a drag on payrolls of 25,000 jobs, according to Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle, whose forecast for Thursday’s report is weaker than many of his peers.

In other dealings on Thursday, the benchmark U.S. crude lost 45 cents to $67, while Brent crude, the international standard, shed 47 cents to $68.64. The dollar was trading at 143.77 Japanese yen, up from 143.65 yen. The euro was unchanged at $1.1790.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) deployed in the sewer system has helped prevent West Sussex homes from flooding, Southern Water says.

AI learns the normal behaviour of sewers and can tell the difference between morning and evening rushes, rain in the system, and a blockage forming.

Digital sensors in a sewer at East Lavington near Petworth on 16 June spotted a blockage caused by a fatberg which was then tackled before gardens and homes flooded with wastewater.

“We’re spotting hundreds of potential blockages before it’s too late,” said Daniel McElhinney, proactive operations control manager at Southern Water.

According to Southern Water, blocked sewers are the single biggest cause of pollution incidents, but AI has now cut internal flooding by 40% and external flooding by 15%.

The water company says it has about 32,000 sewer lever monitors that can check on flows and spot anything out of the ordinary which might indicate a blockage or leak.

Mr McElhinney said: “Most customers do not realise the average suburban sewer is only the diameter of an orange or a tennis ball.

“It doesn’t take much cooking fat to combine with other ‘unflushables’ such as sanitary products, wet wipes or even ear cleaning sticks, to form a fatberg,” he added.

(Bloomberg) — Asian shares fluctuated with investors staying on the sidelines in the leadup to US jobs report, awaiting fresh data after recent prints signaled President Donald Trump’s trade war was hurting the US economy.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index swung between gains and losses after Trump’s announcement of a trade deal with Vietnam had helped the S&P 500 close at another record high Wednesday. The dollar was steady Thursday, hovering around three-year lows. Equity-index futures for the US and Europe were flat. Gold dipped for the first time in four days.

Treasuries inched up Thursday. Yields rose in the prior session following heavy selling in the UK, where concerns about Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ future reignited questions over the nation’s fiscal position. In Japan, 10-year bonds declined ahead of a closely watched auction of 30-year sovereign notes at 12:35 p.m. in Tokyo.

The cross-asset moves underscored cautious optimism as traders contend with pockets of uncertainty ahead of jobs data that will help identify the path ahead for interest rates. With stocks at a record high even after Trump ratcheted up trade tensions, investors are closely monitoring economic data before adding to their portfolios.

“Investors are generally adopting a cautious, wait-and-see approach before the jobs report to be announced later today,” said Tomo Kinoshita, global market strategist at Invesco Asset Management in Tokyo. A growing number of US indicators are pointing to a potential economic slowdown, he said.

On the Vietnam trade deal, Trump said that the Asian country had agreed to drop all levies on US imports. A 20% tariff will be placed on Vietnamese exports to the US, with a 40% levy on any goods deemed to be transshipped through the country. The deal risks provoking retaliatory steps from China, according to Bloomberg Economics.

News of the trade deal boosted Nike Inc. and some exporter stocks amid hopes the accord will avert a potential supply-chain catastrophe.  The country set its daily reference rate for the dong at a record low Thursday.

“Investors have become desensitized by Trump’s frequent erratic direction changes,” said Vey-Sern Ling, a managing director at Union Bancaire Privee. “So far most of these ‘deals’ don’t amount to much and the eventual implementation remains uncertain.”

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Reeves will stay on as Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he sought to draw a line under speculation about her future that sparked the bond selloff. 

Members of Starmer’s ruling Labour Party forced the government to scrap £5 billion ($6.8 billion) worth of cuts to welfare spending on Tuesday evening — making it even harder for Reeves to tame the government’s budget deficit. 

The pound was little changed against the dollar in Asian trading.

Like in the UK, investors have raised concerns in the US, where Trump’s signature economic legislation stalled in the House Wednesday afternoon as Republican fiscal conservatives delayed a key procedural vote. Trump later said on social media the House is ready to vote tonight on the tax bill.

In Japan, the auction of 30-year sovereign notes Thursday is shaping up as a barometer of policymakers’ success in quelling debt-market turmoil that pushed yields on the nation’s super-long bonds to record highs in May. While yields have stepped down from their peaks, markets remain wary, especially after the moves in the UK and the US overnight.

Back in the US, monthly nonfarm payroll data due later Thursday — a day earlier than usual due to a holiday —  will show slower hiring and the highest unemployment rate since 2021 as the Trump administration’s trade and immigration policy shifts start to leave an imprint.

Separate private payrolls data from ADP Research on Wednesday showed employment at US companies fell for the first time in over two years. Despite signs of a downshift, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has repeated the labor market remains solid. 

Following ADP Research’s private payrolls data, traders added to wagers on at least two rate reductions this year, with the first coming in September. If the upcoming jobs report shows further weakness, traders reckon the Fed could move up cuts.

Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

• S&P 500 futures were little changed as of 11:37 a.m. Tokyo time
• Japan’s Topix fell 0.3%
• Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.6%
• Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.1%
• The Shanghai Composite fell 0.1%
• Euro Stoxx 50 futures were little changed

Currencies

• The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
• The euro was little changed at $1.1800
• The Japanese yen was little changed at 143.67 per dollar
• The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.1603 per dollar

Cryptocurrencies

• Bitcoin fell 0.5% to $108,659.08
• Ether fell 1.2% to $2,560.03

Bonds

• The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined two basis points to 4.26%
• Japan’s 10-year yield advanced 1.5 basis points to 1.440%
• Australia’s 10-year yield advanced two basis points to 4.17%

Commodities

• West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.9% to $66.86 a barrel
• Spot gold fell 0.3% to $3,348.52 an ounce

This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Winnie Hsu.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.