2 The Sunday Times November 14, 2021

BUSINESS

S

teve Hare used to wait for the
7am train from York to Lon-
don on a Monday morning,
jostling for position with 500
or so other passengers. But
that was pre-pandemic.
When the chief executive of
FTSE 100 software company
Sage made the journey last
Tuesday, there were just 50
other people on the platform. And when
he arrived in the capital, there was
another difference. “It feels quieter than
York, which is very odd,” said Hare, 60.
While the streets of London are busier
than they were during the depths of lock-
down, the old hustle and bustle is yet to
return. The Centre for Cities think tank
found that by the middle of last month,
daytime weekly footfall in London was
47 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, the
quietest of the 65 towns and cities it ana-
lysed; in York, the figure was 92 per cent.
It helps illustrate Britain’s uneven eco-
nomic recovery from the pandemic.
London has the highest unemployment
rate — 5.8 per cent — in the UK (in the
three months to August); at the other
end of the scale, the southwest of
England has a rate of 3.4 per cent.
The unemployment picture matters.
Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England gov-
ernor, has made it clear that any decision
to raise interest rates from 0.1 per cent
requires more analysis of the impact of
the furlough scheme. So this Tuesday,
the latest job data will be important as it
will include the final month of furlough,
credited with averting a 1980s-style
unemployment crisis — so far at least.
A survey published today by the Reso-
lution Foundation may give the Bank
some comfort as it has found that 88 per
cent of people on furlough in September
were employed the following month.
But the jobs market is also compli-
cated by where people live, their age and
the type of work they are looking for. So
who have been the post-pandemic win-
ners and losers so far?

and can charge extra fees for overnight

stays.

The 5,500 pilots who have signed up

to use the app can rate each landing

site, inspiring some landowners to erect

windsocks and lay out “H” symbols to

make pilots feel more at home.

6 Maybe those who said bitcoin is financial

manure had a point. Josh Riddett, 31, is helping

farmers use cow dung to mine the cryptocurrency:

52 UK agricultural sites have hooked up their

anaerobic digestion machines to help run Riddett’s

number-crunching supercomputers.

Usually, electricity generated in this way is used

to power farms or sold on to the National Grid. But

the soaring price of bitcoin over the past year has

encouraged farmers to get in on the crypto boom

and splash out on the £18,000 computers Riddett

sells through his company, Easy Crypto Hunter.

One farm runs 40 such devices around the

clock. “Bitcoin mining has been criticised for not

being environmentally friendly,” Riddett said. “But

this changes that. Many farmers are seeing annual

returns of more than 70 per cent.”

WORKING

THE LAND

CHOPPER SQUAD

Agriculture will be hit by a drop in subsidies.

Robert Watts looks at the entrepreneurs

helping farmers tap new revenue streams

POO-POWERED CRYPTO

6 Patrick Willis, 56, and his wife Sarah

Chenevix-Trench, 63, met while

learning to fly helicopters. Although

their relationship took off, they soon

found that life in the skies had its

frustrations: finding somewhere to land

close to their favourite restaurants

proved a struggle.

Which is why, 4½ half years ago, they

launched Helipaddy, a service that

allows farmers to advertise their fields

as landing sites. Many of the 2,

landing spots in the UK are located

close to golf courses, luxury hotels and

vineyards. Farmers pay just under £50 a

year to list their land on Helipaddy; they

typically earn about £200 per landing

A nation

divided

LONDON V

REGIONS

As London generates 23 per cent of the UK’s gross

domestic product — far higher than its 13 per cent

share of the population — its recovery from the

pandemic has implications for the economy.

“Covid has been almost perfectly designed to hit

the London economy,” said Tony Wilson, director of

the Institute for Employment Studies (IES). “Offices

have closed, and a lot of jobs depend on them

being open. It’s also been hit by the collapse in

international tourism and aviation jobs.”

Wilson pointed out that the private sector had

been affected worse than the public sector; again,

this has a greater impact on London, as it is more

reliant on private sector jobs and self-employment.

Of the ten constituencies that have experienced

the biggest increases in people claiming for

unemployment-related benefits, eight are in

London, according to data from the House of

Commons Library. While these figures take in

claimants for in-work benefits such as universal

credit, and are not seasonally adjusted, they can

help paint a picture of where the pressure points

are across the country.

There are implications for Boris Johnson’s

“levelling up” pledge if London continues to lag

behind. Could there be a levelling down instead?

Steve Hare, who employs 2,000 in Sage’s

Newcastle HQ and 200 in London, said the aim

should be for the economy as a whole to grow

strongly. “I hope what levelling up does is create

more wealth and more value, as opposed to

redistributing it. You want the pie to be bigger at

the end of the day.”

Filling out the ten highest unemployment

changes table are Hodge Hill, one of Birmingham’s

ten constituencies, and Bradford West.

RURAL V

URBAN

Urban areas have taken a harder blow than rural

ones, according to analysis by the Centre for

Progressive Policy. Ben Franklin, co-director of the

think tank, said this was because cities and towns

were more likely to be affected by lockdown

closures of retail, hospitality and entertainment. “If

you were a low earner in a highly populated urban

area that had high levels of exposure to the virus,

you are likely to have been particularly badly

impacted during this pandemic,” he said.

Tony Wilson of the IES agrees that rural areas —

“often more historically disadvantaged” — appear

to have done relatively better. “This likely reflects

growth of jobs in health, Test and Trace, transport

and distribution, and local hospitality,” he said.

There are also signs that the “red wall” seats that

fell to the Conservatives at the 2019 election have

not fared as badly as other areas, such as London,

in suffering increases in unemployment. However,

this comes with a caveat. “They are doing okay in

terms of recovery,” said Franklin. “We have seen

rates of change in unemployment that were not

too bad in these seats and other deprived places.

But their levels [of unemployment] are still awful.”

Take Hartlepool. While the rate of claims for

unemployment benefits has increased at a slower

pace than elsewhere, it started at a higher level of

6 per cent; it is now at 6.8 per cent. Tottenham, the

area with the fastest-growing rate of

unemployment claims during the pandemic,

started at 4.7 per cent, and is now at 11.3 per cent.

On other measures, there are troubling signs

that red wall seats might not be doing any better,

relatively speaking. Wilson found that areas where

there had been high numbers of people chasing

job vacancies were even more competitive now.

.

YOUNG V

OLD

When the first lockdown was imposed in March

2020, the concern was about the impact on the

young, who often held low-paid roles in hospitality

or retail. But over time that picture has changed.

Xiaowei Xu at the Institute for Fiscal Studies said:

“Young people were hit hardest at the start of the

pandemic but we’ve seen them bounce back quite

well, whereas older workers, those nearing

retirement age, have found it hardest to recover.”

Some of those older workers may have just

taken the chance to retire early — an option not

available to those starting out on the career ladder.

Though the plight of the young appears

to have improved, some factors

need to be considered. Tony

Wilson, with the Institute for Public

Policy Research think tank, found

that the number of young people

looking for work had contracted, in

part because more were staying in

education. He cited data showing that there are

nearly 200,000 more young people in education

and not looking for work than before the crisis.

Wilson also found a regional difference from an

analysis of claims for universal credit, which is paid

to people over the age of 18 who are on low

incomes, whether in or out of work. Growth in

universal credit claims for young people rose in

London and the southeast — but the actual levels

of claims were greatest in coastal towns.

There are worrying signs, too, for youngsters

coming out of education. Last week the Institute of

Student Employers found that companies were

receiving an average of 91 applications for each

graduate job — the highest number per job

opportunity since it started its survey in 1999.

Number of jobs

advertised

23%

London’s GDP

contribution

5.8%

The chancellor’s furlough scheme appears to have

averted an immediate jobs crisis. But as the economy

bounces back, the recovery in employment is far

from even, whether across the country or across

sectors. Jill Treanor digs deeper into the data

2.6m

Unemployment

rate in London

Prudential set to look east as it

starts search for a new chief

Shriti Vadera: seeking a new

boss with Asian experience

Prudential has started a

process to find a new chief

executive to replace Mike

Wells after his transformation

of the insurance giant.

Since his promotion to the

role in 2015, Wells has split off

the Pru’s UK operations into

the separately listed M&G

and, more recently,

demerged its large American

operation, Jackson.

The moves leave the

company focused on fast-

growing Asian markets,

where it has been building

sales of products such as

health insurance to the

burgeoning middle classes.

Chairwoman Baroness

Shriti Vadera has been

working with headhunters

Spencer Stuart and Egon

Zehnder to revamp the

board. Earlier this year,

Spencer Stuart helped hire

Chua Sock Koong and Ming

Lu as non-executives. Hedge

fund Third Point, run by

activist investor Dan Loeb,

had criticised the company

for the lack of Asian

personnel in its management.

Now Vadera is seeking a

new chief with pan-Asian

operating experience, with

observers expecting the net

to be cast across the region.

It raises the prospect that

Wells’s replacement could be

from Hong Kong, China or

Singapore.

The role could be based in

Ex-Barclays boss turns to top

QC over links to Jeffrey Epstein

in any communications with

Mr Epstein.” She said all the

emails were innocuous.

Staley’s working relations

with Epstein are reported to

have begun in 2000 when he

was at JP Morgan, and could

be pored over further in any

legal battles with the

regulators.

In hiring Pannick, Staley’s

intentions to fight for his

reputation are clear. Pannick

is one of Britain’s highest-

profile lawyers. He was

commissioned in 2016 by Sir

Philip Green to challenge a

parliamentary inquiry that

criticised the retailer’s

behaviour in the run-up to

the collapse of BHS.

Soon after, while acting for

anti-Brexit campaigner Gina

Miller, Pannick defeated the

government when it tried to

trigger the Article 50

mechanism necessary to

leave the EU without a

parliamentary vote. Three

years later, he secured a

second victory over Brexit,

showing that the government

had acted illegally when

proroguing parliament.

Pannick was recently lined

up by Camelot amid

expectations that the

awarding of the next National

Lottery licence may lead to a

judicial review. In 2000, he

showed that the National

Lottery had acted unfairly by

rejecting Camelot’s

application to renew its

licence.

In 2003, he secured a High

Court injunction to stop The

Daily Mirror publishing

further details of the Queen’s

home life obtained by a

reporter who had been

working under cover as a

footman in the royal

household.

He has also worked for The

Sunday Times in the 1980s

defending this newspaper

over its publication of

extracts from Peter Wright’s

Spycatcher memoirs.

Staley’s departure has also

turned attention to the

Barclays board. In February

2020, the bank said that

during the summer of the

previous year, Staley had

provided information

voluntarily about his

relationship with Epstein and

described it as

“professional”.

The board, chaired by

Nigel Higgins, supported

Staley then and also when he

resigned earlier this year,

saying it was “disappointed at

this outcome”. Staley’s

successor has been named as

CS Venkatakrishnan, who

Staley hired from JP Morgan.

Staley had just begun to

win plaudits for his strategy

to maintain Barclays’

controversial investment

banking alongside its high

street operations.

Asia, reflecting the new focus

on the region.

Internal frontrunners are

seen as being Mark

FitzPatrick, currently chief

financial officer and chief

operating officer, and Nic

Nicandrou, head of the

insurer’s Asian operations.

Observers said Vadera

might prefer to hire a woman

or somebody ethnically

Chinese for the role.

Prudential said: “As set out

in the annual report, the

board regularly reviews

succession plans.”

Wells, 61, is an American

and succeeded Tidjane

Thiam. Speculation about his

successor has gathered pace

in the City since he

announced a near-$3 billion

(£2.2 billion) capital raise in

September in a move that

boosted the number of Pru

shareholders in Hong Kong

and cemented its shift in

focus away from the West.

Jim Armitage → Continued from page 1

Banca do Antfer

Telegram: https://t.me/bancadoantfer

Issuhub: https://issuhub.com/user/book/