Greece will raise the minimum wage from May 1 for a second time this year, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday as rising inflation takes a toll on household incomes, Reuters reported. "The global surge in inflation is hitting low incomes. From May 1 the basic wage will rise by 50 euros a month to 713 euros a month," Mitsotakis said in a televised address. The conservative government raised the monthly gross minimum wage by about 2% to 663 euros in January, meaning that with the new increase the minimum wage will go up by 9.7%.

European companies are forecast to have coped with record inflation in the first quarter, but the big question for investors during the reporting season which begins in earnest next week will be their outlook for the rest of 2022, Reuters reported. Profits are expected to have grown by 25% in the three months to end-March, a much lower pace compared to the 60-150% rates of 2021 but possibly solid enough to reassure markets.

The Insolvency Service has successfully secured restrictions against a roofer after he falsely applied for a bounce back loan designed to help companies survive the pandemic, the Construction Enquirer reported. David Michael Godderidge falsely applied for £13,000 from the Bounce Back Loan scheme which blew on gambling in just three weeks. Godderidge applied for his own bankruptcy in October 2021 and declared himself as a self-employed roofer.

Canada sanctioned Russian central bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and 13 other “close associates of the Russian regime” in a fresh round of penalties related to the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported. It marks one of the first instances where Nabiullina has shown up on a country’s sanctions list since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in February. Australia previously sanctioned her and the central bank itself has been sanctioned.

Britain faces the worst inflation shock of all major advanced economies over the next two years, the International Monetary Fund warned as it slashed its growth forecast, Bloomberg News reported. The global watchdog said the U.K. economy will be around 1% smaller in both 2022 and 2023 than it forecast in January. It blamed the downgrade on the cost of living crisis and slowing investment as interest rates rise to tackle rocketing consumer prices. No other Group of Seven nation had its outlook lowered across the two years by as much. In 2023, the U.K.

More than 40 crypto business leaders have asked the European Union not to require crypto firms to disclose transaction details and dial down attempts to bring to heel rapidly growing decentralised finance platforms, Reuters reported. The European Union, like countries and jurisdictions across the globe, is working to tame the freewheeling crypto sector. The EU is ahead of the United States and Britain in developing a set of rules for the $2.1 trillion sector.

A new redundancy payment scheme for Irish workers laid off because of Covid-19 health restrictions has opened for applications, the Irish Times reported. The Redundancy Payments (Amendment) Act 2022 will allow workers who were made redundant due to public-health restrictions between March 13th, 2020, and January 31st, 2022, to apply for the payment, which will be up to €2,268 tax-free. Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said that the scheme means that workers made redundant “to protect public health during the pandemic will not be out of pocket for the period they were laid off”.

Russia on Monday flagged a likely further cut in interest rates and more budget spending to help the economy adapt to biting western sanctions as it heads for its deepest contraction since 1994, Reuters reported. Russia faces soaring inflation and capital flight while grappling with a possible debt default after the West imposed unprecedented sanctions to punish President Vladimir Putin for sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Putin said on Monday that Russia should use its state budget to support the economy and liquidity when lending activity has waned.

Germany’s employers and unions have joined together in opposing an immediate European Union ban on natural gas imports from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, saying such a move would lead to factory shutdowns and the loss of jobs in the bloc’s largest economy, the Associated Press reported.

As President Emmanuel Macron far-right candidate Marine Le Pen cross France in a whirlwind of last-minute campaigning, their runoff will hinge to a large extent on perceptions of the economy, the New York Times reported. Worries about widening economic insecurity, and the surging cost of living amid the fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine, have become top issues in the race, ahead of security and immigration. Ms.