Business news

Business news

Listen to the business news to practise and improve your listening skills.

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Preparation

Transcript

The first item in the news today is the recent elections that took place across the country. This was a crucial vote, which may see a dramatic change in how the country develops over the coming years. Overall, a 54.5 per cent voter turnout was registered. This represents an increase of 11 per cent over the previous election and six per cent above the average for the past 50 years. There has also been a slight change in demographics, with an increase in youth turnout in the 18- to 24- and 24- to 29-year-old brackets. Despite this increase, young people are still less likely to vote than older people; 84 per cent of voters in the 70 plus age group came to the polling stations.

Moving on, the global digital powerhouse ONK today posted quarterly results which were above forecast. Back in March, Tim Bolling, CEO, issued a profit warning over fears that there would be losses following the recall of their leading product, the 40d device. In fact, the company posted quarterly revenue of US$14.8 billion which represents an increase of 11 per cent from the same quarter a year ago. They also announced that they had sold 21 million 40d devices over the quarter. The company has provided the information that with this level of revenue, there will be a gross margin of 34 to 35 per cent, ultimately leading to a US$1.20 per share cash dividend awarded to shareholders.

And in our final news item we ask, will we soon be saying goodbye to coins and notes forever? The nationwide trend of using cashless payment options is increasing. There are a number of reasons for this development. A key reason for this is a growing interest in reducing the number of items people need to leave their homes with. As almost everyone carries a smartphone with them, and many people also have smartwatches, the ability to pay for things using one of these two technologies is particularly appealing. More and more retailers are accepting cashless payments and in some cases they've stopped accepting cash altogether.

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Submitted by Asni on Wed, 25/11/2020 - 22:57

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About tech skills most in demand for the future, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are highly demanded tech skills. Hiring growth for AI specialists has increased over the past few years, it has grown 74% anually over the past 4 years. According to McKinsey, 49% of companies are currently exploring or planning to use machine learning, which makes it one of the most profitable skills you can learn. Skills related to data science and analytics are consistently in demand tech skills as well, in fact, 84% of enterprises have launched advanced analytics and Big Data initiatives to accelerate their decision-making and bring greater accuracy. Note: the statistical information in the comment has been extracted from a post from a code learning website.
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Submitted by danisep on Sat, 24/10/2020 - 19:39

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Since I can remember our country has always had high unemployment averages, before the pandemic percentage had double digits around 10.9%. And now at least 4 millions of Colombian don't have an employ, due quarantine unemployment has reached 20 per cent and in some cities it is about 30 per cent. Just to open the economy again doesn't fix those issues. All this affects the demand overall, not just for people who don't have money to buy due to his unemployment condition insead people which reduce his demand for fear of losing his current job. The government has established new laws to try to increase the employability and reduce the hit to the economy left by covid but are not enough.

Submitted by Echo1 on Sat, 24/10/2020 - 09:28

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The number of patients contracting the Covid-19 virus is continuously increasing in countries like USA, Philippines and Brazil. Due to the rigorous stages of vaccine testing, the earliest is expected to be released on April 2021. But this poses another question: when will this vaccine reach third-world country like the Philippines and Brazil? For this reason, scientists speculates that herd immunity can possibly stop the spread of the virus. However, this will require 66% or one-third of the country's population (or local) to be positive of the disease.

Submitted by Ugulhan on Thu, 22/10/2020 - 12:09

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The presidential election has been held in 2016, and the government has offered several polling stations in each region. The voter turnout before the election was presented and their purposes of parties. The Group of Demographics for voting will include from 16 to 100 age

Submitted by Eduardo C on Sat, 17/10/2020 - 04:53

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The victims of drug trafficking since 2006, with the war on drugs to the present 250 thousand people have died, registered, in 2006 the rate was 10.89 homicides per 100 thousand inhabitants, when his term ended, the rate doubled with Enrique peña and followed the same path.

Submitted by Paola1005 on Sat, 17/10/2020 - 03:35

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Investigating more on the subject, we find that in Mexico 41.9% of the population is in poverty and 7.4 in extreme poverty, that is from 2008 to 2018, that means 52.4 million people are in poverty and 9.3 million of people in extreme poverty. To this we add that 6.9% of the population is vulnerable due to income. awareness and action are needed on this issue.

Submitted by Aldo_nava on Sat, 17/10/2020 - 01:51

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Speaking of Apple, 2019 sales were reported for the second fiscal quarter and the data was as follows: - Revenue between $55 billion and $59 billion - Gross margin between 37% and 38% - Operational expenditure between 8.5 and 8.6 billion dollars - Other income/(expenditure) of $300 million - Tax rate of approximately 17%. Without a doubt the company has had better years of sales. In spite of its new strategies it has not seen a real drop.

Submitted by Betsabé on Sat, 17/10/2020 - 01:47

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The municipal president of Chignahuapan, Puebla has implemented health measures, such as reducing the audience capacity to 33 percent, so that the Festival of Light and Life is held in the municipality. This will make the tourist visits are reduced and therefore also the municipal economy.

Submitted by MonseZNava on Sat, 17/10/2020 - 00:58

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A very important topic is aporophobia, this concept is "new" (it’s a little known topic) even though it has been practiced for decades. But what is aporophobia? This is the fear or contempt for poor people. It is a very recurrent theme in migration, more than 80 percent of migrants suffer from it. It is a negative factor that affects millions of individuals, its practice has increased in recent years and not much is done about it in Mexico and around the world

Submitted by Esme on Fri, 16/10/2020 - 23:00

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Statistics is a science, which with data, figures and numbers seeks to solve problems. I have used it for deep research. I have seen in the last semester its function and its application. It is applied in areas such as economics, politics, the arts, health, and more. we can got the data from surveys, experiments, etc.