THE HOT STORY

Graduate vacancies in UK fall as hiring slows

Graduate job opportunities in the UK have fallen sharply, with vacancies down 34.9% year-on-year, according to Adzuna, as employers scale back hiring amid economic uncertainty and the growing use of AI. Despite this, some companies continue to invest in early careers, including Tesco, Whitbread, Halfords and Specsavers, which are all expanding their graduate schemes. Adzuna co-founder Andrew Hunter said that the jobs market was "stabilising, not recovering," adding: "For jobseekers, that means the fundamentals haven't changed: [they should be] targeting applications carefully, using every available tool to stand out, and staying alert to the sectors - like teaching and domestic and cleaning - that are genuinely adding roles . . . The employers still investing in pay and headcount are telling us something important about where the real demand lies."

The Times

STRATEGY

Nissan to cut 10% of Europe workforce in global restructuring

Nissan plans to cut about 10% of its European workforce, including in France, Spain and the UK, as part of a restructuring aimed at easing the Japanese carmaker’s financial difficulties.

Financial Times

WORKFORCE

Portugal tightens citizenship rules

A new Portuguese law will double the amount of time needed for foreigners to obtain citizenship. The period required for most foreigners to obtain citizenship will be extended from five to up to 10 years. Individuals from Brazil, Angola and other Lusophone nations will have to wait seven years to obtain citizenship instead of five. Bloomberg notes a massive inflow of immigrants following the pandemic that has strained Portugal’s housing, health care and public services.

Bloomberg

HEALTH & WELLBEING

More Dutch workers get paid time off on Liberation Day

The number of collective labour agreements in the Netherlands providing a paid day off on Liberation Day has increased to 13% in 2025, up from 8% in 2022, according to the employers' association AWVN. Despite this growth, 79% of agreements still offer the day off only every five years. Liberation Day on May 5 is not a statutory public holiday: employers and employees must negotiate any paid time off. National and municipal government employees receive the day off, but practices vary across the private sector.

NL Times

REGULATION

Italy closes antitrust investigations into AI firms

Italy's antitrust regulator, known as the AGCM, says it has closed investigations into three AI companies - China's DeepSeek, France's ⁠Mistral AI SAS and Turkey's Scaleup Yazilim Hizmetleri Anonim Şirketi - over risks related to the generation of inaccurate or misleading content after having received binding commitments from them. The three companies have agreed to better inform users about so-called hallucination risks via their websites and apps, adding permanent disclaimers ‌to ⁠their chatbot services, the authority said.

Reuters

LEGAL

Deutsche Bank denies training bankers to manipulate markets

Deutsche Bank denies training employees to engage in market manipulation after a former trader who was convicted of fraud accused the lender of instructing him on an illegal trading strategy.

Financial Times

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

ArcelorMittal AGM targeted by protesters

ArcelorMittal's annual shareholder meeting in Luxembourg City yesterday faced protests over job relocations and environmental concerns. Trade unions LCGB and OGBL joined steelworkers from various plants to voice their opposition to potential job cuts moving from Western Europe to Eastern Europe and India. Environmental activists also condemned the company's pollution record, claiming it is failing to meet its climate targets. Shareholders re-elected board members and approved a dividend increase.

Luxembourg Times

INTERNATIONAL

Zuckerberg blames Meta layoffs on capital spending

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the Facebook parent firm's planned layoffs are the consequence of increased capital spending for AI, and in comments to staff at a company town hall on Thursday he declined to rule out further job cuts. “We basically have two major cost centers in the company: compute infrastructure and people-oriented things," Zuckerberg said. "If we’re investing more in one area to serve our community, then that means we have less capital to allocate to the other. So that means we ⁠do need to take down the size of the company somewhat." He added: "Getting everyone internally to use AI tools and getting to do the work more efficiently is not the thing that's driving layoffs."

Reuters

Australian banks warned about larger, faster cyber attacks

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), Australia's financial system regulator, has said the country's banks are struggling to match the rapid rate of change in AI, warning that frontier AI systems such as Anthropic's Mythos had the potential to precipitate larger and faster cyber attacks. "APRA has heard clear recognition from regulated entities of the need for a step change in cyber practices and a continuing uplift in capabilities to protect IT assets in an evolving threat environment," the regulator said, adding: "APRA observed many boards are still developing the technical literacy required to provide effective challenge on AI-related risks and oversight."

Australian Financial Review

Asia Insurance Review

Reuters

South-east Asia workers continue to adjust to energy-saving measures

South-east Asia is experiencing a heatwave at a moment when many of the region's countries have imposed temperature controls at government workplaces since the US-Israeli war in Iran began, among other measures to conserve energy. Countries such as Thailand have set air conditioning temperatures between 26°C and 27°C, causing discomfort among workers. “Sometimes it even feels hard to breathe,” said Pornpimol Sirimai, who works at the country's health ministry. The onset of the El Nino weather system in the summer could make the situation in the region even worse.

Straits Times

OTHER

Paris animal hospital gives ‘second chance’ to animals injured by humans

The Wildlife Veterinary Hospital in Maisons-Alfort, near Paris, offers "a second chance" to deer, swans, fox cubs and hedgehogs injured by humans in incidents such as road collisions. Over the past year, the hospital, which is run by the Faune Alfort nonprofit, has cared for more than 10,400 wild animals. Once healed, the animals are transferred to outdoor enclosures or aviaries to prepare for a reintroduction into their natural environment. April to September is the "juvenile period when wild animals reproduce” and the admissions peak, Elisa Mora, head of communications for Faune Alfort, says. “Wild animals are already vulnerable, but juveniles even more so.”

euronews

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