British firms hired permanent employees at the slowest rate in 18 months in November, although starting salaries rose faster due to staff shortages in many sectors, a survey showed on Friday. The monthly survey from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation tallies with official data which has shown Britain's rapid pace of job creation slowing, after a sharp fall in the unemployment rate to just 6 percent in the three months to September. "(There's) not much sign of a happy Christmas in the job market," said Bernard Brown, a partner at accountancy firm KPMG, which sponsors the survey.

Multinationals will face a penalty tax if they are found to have artificially moved profits out of the United Kingdom to lower tax jurisdictions, such as the Republic, the British chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne has said, the Irish Times reported. Delivering his autumn statement to the house of commons, Mr Osborne, who is bidding to bring in £5 billion-a-year more from curbing tax avoidance, said he was determined to ensure that multi-nationals “pay their fair share”. “That’s not fair to other British firms. It’s not fair to the British people either.

The property developer Vincent Tchenguiz has filed a $3.5 billion claim in London against the accounting firm Grant Thornton, the Icelandic bank Kaupthing and three individuals, claiming they were behind a flawed criminal inquiry into the bank’s collapse, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The Serious Fraud Office of Britain dropped its inquiry against Mr.

Bonuses handed out to senior bosses at Royal Bank of Scotland are facing renewed scrutiny after the chairman of the bailed-out bank apologised for inaccuracies in evidence given to MPs about its restructuring division, The Guardian reported. Sir Philip Hampton admitted evidence given by two of the most senior bankers to the Treasury select committee was incorrect. The division is facing accusations about its treatment of small businesses.

The government has won an argument over insolvency creditor meetings, despite opposition from influential business groups, economia reported. Business groups, including ICAEW and insolvency trade body R3, had told the government to back down on its insolvency reforms – as part of the small business bill – which will see insolvency meetings with creditors banned unless requested by at least 10% of creditors.

“It now looks clear there are minimal prospects for success with our legal challenge, so we will no longer pursue it,” Mr. Osborne said in a letter to Mark Carney, Bank of England governor and chairman of the Financial Stability Board, The Wall Street Journal reported. The decision follows the publication of European legal advice suggesting the U.K.’s challenge would fail. The U.K.

Austerity cuts are an “inescapable reality” in the short term in Northern Ireland but a lower rate of corporation tax could deliver “game changing” private sector growth, the president of a leading business body has said in Belfast tonight, the Irish Times reported. Kevin Kingston, president of the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the next few years would be difficult but without the catalyst of a lower rate of corporation tax the North would face a vicious circle of cuts and austerity.

Bankers’ salaries, not just their bonuses, should be threatened if they break the rules, the Bank of England governor has said. Speaking in the wake of the $4.3bn fines for foreign exchange manipulation, Mark Carney said new pay structures were needed to rebuild trust in the banking system, and reduce risk-taking and short-term thinking, the Financial Times reported. He floated the idea of senior staff taking some of their salary as “performance bonds” citing ideas set forth last month by Bill Dudley, the president of the New York Federal Reserve.

Barclays Plc is considering shifting its businesses into eight entities in response to rules forcing Britain’s largest lenders to separate retail operations from riskier investment-banking units, an internal document shows. The lender is reviewing whether to put its U.K. and European retail operations, its U.S. holding company and a subsidiary carrying out back-office functions within a firewall, separating them from five other entities including a derivatives trading arm, according to the draft document obtained by Bloomberg News. The proposals will go to the board on Dec. 11.

HSBC’s profits fell short of expectations in the third quarter after the bank set aside $1.8 billion for misconduct settlements and compensation for customers, including a potential fine for rigging currency markets, the Irish Times reported. The provision and a jump in HSBC’s everyday compliance costs show the impact of regulators’ increasing efforts to clamp down on bad behaviour in the global banking industry that contributed to the financial crisis.