Fashion retail giant H&M slashes 1,500 jobs to cut costs
Swedish fashion retail giant H&M on Wednesday announced it will lay off 1,500 employees in a cost-cutting move. The company said it expects to save around 2 billion Swedish krona ($189.5 million) per year.
H&M's global cost and efficiency program is estimated to result in a restructuring charge of just over 800 million krona ($75.8 million) in the fourth quarter of 2022, read a statement.
"The cost and efficiency program that we have initiated involves reviewing our organization and we are very mindful of the fact that colleagues will be affected by this," CEO Helena Helmersson said.
"We will support our colleagues in finding the best possible solution for their next step," she added.
South Korean banks' lending rate hit the highest in over 10 years in October amid rapid policy rate hikes, central bank data showed.
The weighted average rate for new bank loans to households was an annualized 5.34 percent in October, up 0.19 percentage points from the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
It marked the highest since June 2012 on the back of rapid interest rate hikes by the central bank.
The BOK began to tighten its monetary policy stance in August last year, lifting its key rate from a record low of 0.50 percent to 3.25 percent.
The rate for mortgage loans to households added 0.03 percentage points over the month to 4.82 percent in October, and the credit loan rate jumped 0.60 percentage points to 7.22 percent.
The percentage of bank fixed-rate loans to households stood at 29.0 percent in October, up 5.0 percentage points from the prior month. Militant aligned with the Islamic State group are advancing in northeastern Mali, prompting terrified citizens to flee their homes, sources there say.
The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) launched an offensive in the Gao and Menaka regions in March, triggering heavy fighting with local armed groups and rival militants.
"If nothing is done, the whole region will be occupied" by militants, a human rights campaigner, contacted by AFP on WhatsApp, said on condition of anonymity.
Witnesses and other sources contacted by AFP confirmed the ISGS' sustained push in this remote and dangerous area, and rights campaigners say civilians have been massacred.
The strategic towns of Gao and Menaka have long been in the forefront of Mali's decade-long militant crisis. Since 2012, thousands have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes, in an insurgency that has spread to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.
Despair at the toll prompted Malian army officers to mount a coup in 2020. The junta has brought in Russian paramilitaries-a move that prompted France to pull out troops who had been battling militants for nine years.