English in Madrid

Alcohol-free beer and pet grooming used to measure inflation A shift towards healthy living has been reflected in changes to the way inflation is calculated. Alcohol-free beer and houmous are among the items added to the virtual basket of goods and services used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to chart the rising cost of living. The ONS collects the costs of 760 products and services across different retailers to come up with the monthly inflation figures. The items are reviewed every year and selected on the basis that they are representative of things that consumers typically spend their money on . Motorhomes, dashboard cameras , and pet grooming have also been added in the latest review. "This year, healthier lifestyle choices influence consumer spending, reflected by goods such as houmous and non-alcoholic beer," said Stephen Burgess, the deputy director for prices at the ONS.                       ...

Image created by Chat GPT US tariff turmoil makes Spain's flagship foods seek other markets It's lunchtime in a bar in the southern Spanish city of Seville. The kitchen is humming with activity, and behind the bar a member of staff pours cold beer from a tap into a glass. Nearby, another uses a carving knife to cut slices from a large leg of jamón ibérico, or Iberian ham, placing each one on a plate, to be served as an appetiser. There are few more Spanish scenes. And there are few more Spanish products than jamón ibérico, whose unique salty flavour is * renowned across the world, and part of a national cured ham industry worth nearly €750m ($850m; £630m) each year in exports. As he watches the jamón being carved, Jaime Fernández, international commercial director for the Grupo Osborne, which produces wine, sherry and the renowned Cinco Jotas brand of ham, describes it as a " flagship " national foodstuff. "It's one of the most iconic gastronomic prod...

 Spain looks to immigrants to drive economy A group of Sub-Saharan African men are playing bingo in a conference room of a hotel near the northern Spanish city of León. They laugh and celebrate when their numbers are called out , but many of these asylum seekers have harrowing stories. Among them is Michael, who fled Ghana to escape a violent feud that saw his sister and father killed. After travelling by land to Morocco, he paid a trafficker who put him on an inflatable boat crammed with people which took him to the Canary Islands. “I was so happy, because I knew all my troubles, and the people trying to kill me, were behind me,” he says. “Because once you are in Spain you are safe.” In Ghana he worked as a petrol pump attendant and a storekeeper . He also started studying human resource management, which he hopes to be able to continue in Spain once he has settled . “Spain is one of the most respected countries in the world,” he says. “Being here is an opportunity for me.”...

Source:   Louis Hansel en Unsplash ‘A certain stigma’: Spain’s hospitality sector hit by waiter shortage  Despite huge national unemployment, restaurants owners are struggling to fill vacancies. Why? After a two-year drought, tourists are flooding back to Spain, but just as the hospitality industry begins to recover from the pandemic, it faces a new crisis – a shortage of waiters.  From Mallorca to Madrid, restaurateurs are crying out for waiters with tens of thousands of jobs waiting to be filled. The Hard Rock hotel in Ibiza is so desperate it is offering staff a €200 (£170) bonus to find suitable employees.  The paradox is that unemployment in Spain is running at 13.4% – more than double the EU average of 6.2% – yet there are more than 100,000 job vacancies, with as many as half of those in hospitality, even though the national statistics office says 85,000 bars and restaurants closed permanently in the first year of the pandemic.  “People come to me for i...

Source: Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash Inflation: Sports bras in, doughnuts out of cost of living measure   High demand for workout gear and health-conscious vegetarian options are now being used to calculate the change in the cost of living in the UK.  Items such as tinned beans , boosted by a rise in plant-based diets, have also been added to the basket of goods used to measure prices.  The review by the Office for National Statistics also saw pet collars added.  But men's suits and doughnuts are out as homeworking shifted how we dress and snack during Covid lockdowns .  The ONS said it decided to add meat-free sausages to the basket of more than 700 goods, which is used to calculate how the cost of living is changing, to reflect a boost in demand for healthier food options.  It also said that the removal of a men's two-piece suit, and the addition of sports bras and crop tops , accounted for the fact that spending on formal clothes has bee...

Source:  Hansjörg Keller on Unsplash Spain to trial four-day week in response to Covid pandemic - will the UK do the same?   Under plans backed by the country's treasury, firms who cut their week to 32 hours with no loss of pay will get financial backing from the government.  The pilot, which is set to cost the country €50million (£44million), could be rolled out further if successful . Íñigo Errejón, the leader of, Más País, confirmed on Thursday that the country's finance ministry had accepted the plan.  "The eight hour working day was unrealistic a century ago," he said, responding to criticism.  Maria Alvarez, a businesswoman and founder of the 4 Day Week Campaign in Spain, said the pilot represented "a sensible idea that should be in every government's toolbox coming out of this crisis". "What this pilot reveals is that the four-day week has never been a moonshot . Quite the opposite ," she said.  UK based think-tank Auton...

Source: Wikipedia UK employment total hits record high   The number of people in work in the UK has reached a record high of 32.54 million, latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show. Unemployment was flat , with a small increase of 8,000 between September and November for a total of 1.37 million. Average earnings excluding bonuses increased by 3.3% in the year to November, as wage rises continued to outpace inflation. The number of job vacancies rose by 10,000 to a record high of 853,000. ONS head of labour market David Freeman said: "The number of people working grew again, with the share of the population in work now the highest on record. " Meanwhile , the share of the workforce looking for work and unable to find it remains at its lowest for over 40 years, helped by a record number of job vacancies . " Wage growth continues to outpace inflation, which fell back slightly in the latest month."  The unemployment...