EU wants to promote innovation through pilot markets 9. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot In six particularly important so-called pilot markets the EU Commission wants to remove obstacles hampering innovation. This includes the markets for electronic health services, protection textiles, sustainable constructions, recycling, bio products and renewable energies.
German companies more and more important 9. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot The top ten of the world’s most valuable companies are not dominated by US companies any more. European and Chinese companies are gaining more and more importance. As of the end of 2007 there were four Chinese, four US and two European companies among the top ten of those companies with the highest market capitalization. …
Strike record in 14 years 7. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot In the year 2007 there were 580.000 lost workdays due to strikes which is a new record in 14 years. This is at least that which said Mr. Hagen Lesch, an expert from the Institute for the German economy (IW) in Cologne, in an interview with the Frankfurter Rundschau. Main culprits are the striking Telekom …
Germany´s competitiveness is worldclass 7. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot According to European top managers Germany is next to China and together with Switzerland the most competitive country in the world. This finding was revealed through a survey carried out in the course of the “Handelsblatt Business-Monitor International“among top managers from six European countries.
10 bleak forecasts from Denmark 4. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot What lies ahead in the year 2008? Recession in Great Britain, plummeting of the S&P 500, share prices falling by 40% on the Chinese stock exchange, increase in the oil price to 175 dollars per barrel, continuing weakness of the G3 currencies US dollar, Euro and Yen. If these “Outrageous Predictions” by the Saxo Bank …
Employees in SMEs work most 4. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot A survey conducted by the Fachhochschule für Oekonomie und Management (FOM) demonstrated that the work of executives and specialists is marked by above-average long working hours and regular work on weekends. About 400 executives and employees from the whole of Germany took part in this survey. 6% of those interviewed were self-employed entrepreneurs, 29% executives …
More than 40 million gainfully employed people in November 4. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot Over the last months of 2007 the number of gainfully employed people developed particularly positively: in November the number of Germans having a job exceeded 40 million the third month in a row. In November 2007 the Federal Statistical Office registered about 40.29 million gainfully employed people which is 627.000 or +1.6% more than in …
High energy cost lead to German saving record 4. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot Price hikes for energy force Germans to save. 73% of Germans interviewed by the Forsa polling firm said that they wanted to save on energy in 2008 whereas in 2007 this percentage was just 69%. Back in 2006 it was even as low as 56%.
Majority of Christian democrats want minimum wages 4. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot An overwhelming majority of Germans is for the introduction of statutory minimum wages. In a survey 71% of respondents said that they were in favour of them. Just 25% are against. Even 59% of voters for the Christian democrats advocated statutory minimum wages. At least these are the findings which were discovered by the forsa …
One third of Germans still possess Deutschmarks 3. January 2008 by Thomas Jannot A survey conducted by the Hamburg based stern magazine revealed that six years after the introduction of the Euro one third of Germans still possess bank notes or coins of the former Deutschmark. 53% of respondents said that they possessed less than 20 Deutschmarks each. 22% still have between 20 and 50 D-marks. 12% still …