(Sharecast News) – Big pay increases for highly paid workers in London and the south-east have masked real wage cuts across large swathes of the economy and led to a widening in the UK’s geographical earnings gap, a leading thinktank has said. A study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that while workers in some sectors – such as manufacturing, education and hospitality – had fallen in inflation-adjusted terms, there had been significant rises for those employed in the business services sector, the City and IT. – Guardian
Airlines flying to Heathrow have been told to carry as much fuel as possible in their tanks because of supply problems at Britain’s largest airport, in a controversial practice that can increase carbon emissions. The airport asked airlines to carry excess fuel on the way to London and to avoid carrying too much when departing, citing supply issues, in a notice sent on Sunday. The notice covered nine days from Sunday 23 July to Monday 31 July. – Guardian
The Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind ChatGPT has unveiled a plan to scan the iris of every person in the world to help distinguish real people from sophisticated machines. Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, on Monday launched his project Worldcoin in Britain and 34 other countries. – Telegraph
Virgin Media O2 is cutting 2,000 jobs as it battles to reduce costs under the burden of billions of pounds of borrowing. Redundancy notices were issued to some staff on Monday night. Unions were notified in June that between 800 and 2,000 jobs were at risk and the company is understood to have opted to cut the maximum number of roles.- Telegraph
Credit Suisse has been hit with a record fine by the Bank of England as part of $388 million of penalties levied on the lender for risk management failures exposed by the implosion of Archegos. The Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority said its £87 million fine was for “extremely serious” faults at the Swiss lender – now owned by UBS, its national rival – that were “symptomatic of an unsound risk culture”. – The Times
