Plans revealed for Oxford Street to be pedestrianised

📍Top line: London Mayor Sadiq Khan is reigniting his plan to pedestrianise Oxford Street. The move aims to rejuvenate one of London’s busiest retail hubs, which saw footfall dwindle during the pandemic due to a surge in online shopping. Khan’s office emphasised the need for urgent action to avoid a further decline.

Generating £3.1 billion in annual sales, Oxford Street remains a crucial artery for the city’s economy. The pedestrianisation plan is now subject to public consultation, with local authorities keen to ensure it benefits not just the street but the wider region as concerns about traffic overflow into surrounding areas persist.

Government seeks an end to zero-hours contracts

📍Top line: The UK government is intensifying its effort to eliminate "exploitative" zero-hours contracts. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner will lead discussions with union leaders and major business representatives as part of Labour's ‘Make Work Pay’ reforms. The talks aim to address the rising concerns over job insecurity linked to these contracts.

Over one million workers are currently on zero-hours contracts, a figure that has grown significantly over the past decade. The government argues that these contracts leave employees in a precarious position, subject to last-minute shift cancellations and unpredictable work hours.

Elsewhere in business:

☕ Pret A Manger achieved a major milestone last year, hitting £1 billion in sales for the first time in its history. Notably, 25% of this revenue came from outside the UK, reflecting the company's successful international expansion. The sandwich chain has grown to a global presence of 690 stores, with 81 new branches opened over the past year. 

📰  The Guardian Media Group (GMG) is in negotiations to sell The Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, to Tortoise Media. Tortoise, launched by former BBC executive James Harding in 2019, has reportedly promised a £25 million investment over five years.

UK workforce shrinkage costs £16 billion in lost tax

📍Top line: The UK workforce has shrunk by 800,000 since the pandemic, costing the public £16 billion a year in lost tax receipts. According to the Institute for Employment Studies, this marks the largest labour market contraction since the 1980s, with the economic impact double that of the 2008 financial crisis!

The report highlights a "participation crisis," showing a 1.5 percentage-point drop in people either working or seeking employment. Had pre-pandemic employment levels been maintained, the economy would be £25 billion larger.

The study reveals that many workers, particularly young people and those with health issues, have stayed out of the job market.

Elsewhere in the economy:

🏡 London’s luxury property market is stalling, with high-end mansions struggling to sell. Knight Frank has reported a 22% drop in sales of homes over £10 million in the past year. Uncertainty around taxes and the economy are scaring off buyers, with sales of homes worth more than £30 million plummeting over 60%.

🇺🇸 The US Federal Reserve is set to announce an interest rate cut today, with two key options under consideration: a quarter-point or half-point reduction. The Fed's decision is being closely watched, as a larger cut could signal concerns about an economic downturn, while a smaller cut might suggest caution over lingering inflation risks.

Disney has opened applications for its 2025 Marketing internships in London. Successful candidates will be placed within one of the company’s lines of business, which include Disney+, Walt Disney Studios and Disney Music Group, assisting marketing teams in their day-to-day operations. The positions are open to any second year undergraduate students on an industrial placement year commencing in June 2025. Apply now here.

Instagram to introduce parent-controlled ‘teen accounts’

📍Top line: Meta is introducing new “teen accounts” on Instagram to enhance child safety and mental health protection. All users aged 13-17 will automatically be moved to these accounts, which will be private by default, and have restrictions on messaging and content visibility. Parents will have access to monitoring tools, allowing them to see who their child has interacted with.

Teens aged 13-15 will need adult consent to change settings, and the accounts will feature a “sleep mode” that mutes notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Meta’s changes, initially rolling out in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia, will extend to the EU later in the year. The company is also set to use AI to identify teens lying about their age.

Elsewhere in tech

👓 Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel has unveiled a new version of the company’s Spectacles smart glasses, aiming to advance augmented reality (AR) technology that could eventually compete with or even replace smartphones. These AR Spectacles overlay digital images and filters onto the real world, offering a potential new revenue stream for Snap beyond its current reliance on ads and subscriptions from the Snapchat app.

💰 Microsoft and BlackRock have announced a $30 billion fund to invest in AI infrastructure, focusing on building data centres and energy projects. The Global AI Infrastructure Investment Partnership aims to support the growing computational power demands of AI models and could mobilize up to $100 billion with future debt financing.

🎙️ Coldplay have announced six UK shows for 2025, including two in Hull, marking their first-ever performance in the city. Hull locals will get early access to tickets, while the remaining four shows will be at London’s Wembley Stadium. Tickets go on sale 27 September and the band will release a limited number of £20 tickets on 22 November!

🍺 Switching from the British pint to a smaller measure, such as two-thirds of a pint, could improve public health by reducing alcohol consumption, according to Cambridge researchers. A study conducted in 12 pubs, bars, and restaurants in England replaced pints with the smaller measure as the largest available draught beer size. The change led to a nearly 10% drop in beer sales.

🍫 Halloween shoppers could face a "horror show" as chocolate prices soared by 11% over the past year, far outpacing grocery inflation of 2.7%. Rising cocoa costs, driven by tree disease and bad weather in major growing regions, may have Brits cutting back on treats this October 31st!