Business news

Listen to the business news to practise and improve your listening skills.

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Preparation

Transcript

The first item in the news today is the recent elections that took place across the country. This was a crucial vote, which may see a dramatic change in how the country develops over the coming years. Overall, a 54.5 per cent voter turnout was registered. This represents an increase of 11 per cent over the previous election and six per cent above the average for the past 50 years. There has also been a slight change in demographics, with an increase in youth turnout in the 18- to 24- and 24- to 29-year-old brackets. Despite this increase, young people are still less likely to vote than older people; 84 per cent of voters in the 70 plus age group came to the polling stations.

Moving on, the global digital powerhouse ONK today posted quarterly results which were above forecast. Back in March, Tim Bolling, CEO, issued a profit warning over fears that there would be losses following the recall of their leading product, the 40d device. In fact, the company posted quarterly revenue of US$14.8 billion which represents an increase of 11 per cent from the same quarter a year ago. They also announced that they had sold 21 million 40d devices over the quarter. The company has provided the information that with this level of revenue, there will be a gross margin of 34 to 35 per cent, ultimately leading to a US$1.20 per share cash dividend awarded to shareholders.

And in our final news item we ask, will we soon be saying goodbye to coins and notes forever? The nationwide trend of using cashless payment options is increasing. There are a number of reasons for this development. A key reason for this is a growing interest in reducing the number of items people need to leave their homes with. As almost everyone carries a smartphone with them, and many people also have smartwatches, the ability to pay for things using one of these two technologies is particularly appealing. More and more retailers are accepting cashless payments and in some cases they've stopped accepting cash altogether.

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Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

Write a short overview of statistics, figures or trends that you are familiar with.

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B2 - Upper intermediate

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Currency notes and coins are symbols of a country. Countries in the world refresh memories of their heroes through currency notes and coins. Otherwise new generations would never know their heroes and their deeds. In short currency notes and coins has their own attraction. All ages of people in the world are like currency notes and coins.

Hello, thanks for the audio. It was tricky at the beginning, but I got used to it. I have an issue with this English exercise: - Lina,. , was very pleased to attend the meeting. The options to filling the gap are: Too, also and as well as. Could you help me please?

Hello GiulianaAndy,

Please note that we don't normally help our users with questions from other sources, as it's challenging enough for us to keep up with all the questions about our own materials.

'too' is the correct option here. I'd refer you to the Cambridge Dictionary page on these three words.

All the best,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

In india, GDP was falling about 23% according to world bank data due to covid. Unemployment rate in India is highest 40theenth years. Corruption is danger than covid.

The impact of COVID-19 on international tourism has been overwhelmed within the last two years. In 2019, 100% of worldwide destinations introduced travel restrictions and 27% of the countries kept their borders completely closed for international flights. In consequence, there was a -74% of loss for international arrivals around the world.

The pandemic COVID-19 has caused a decrease in employment in Colombia, 25 percent of Colombians are unemployed due to the health crisis that has kicked the country since last year.

In 2019 Peru was the 5th best economy in Latin-American but at the same time my country was one of those invested the least in public health. The government invested only 3.3% of GDP. To put it in context, in Chile, a neighboring country, they invested a 5% of GPD in health. Two years later we realize corruption is more dangerous than any virus.

according to the statistics in the year 2020, the number of social media users, especially facebook and instgram, in the UK is on increase: roughtly 45 million active social media users, that means rate 66% of population.The majority ist adults,37 million.

It is only the beggining of 2021 and Brazil is already facing a "second wave" of the virus. Cases are rising around 50% over the last two weeks and the hospital beds are at 90% of occupation. Brazilians are still waiting for a vaccine to come, but the government has no certain date to start immunizing people, saying just "late January/early February".

About tech skills most in demand for the future, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are highly demanded tech skills. Hiring growth for AI specialists has increased over the past few years, it has grown 74% anually over the past 4 years. According to McKinsey, 49% of companies are currently exploring or planning to use machine learning, which makes it one of the most profitable skills you can learn. Skills related to data science and analytics are consistently in demand tech skills as well, in fact, 84% of enterprises have launched advanced analytics and Big Data initiatives to accelerate their decision-making and bring greater accuracy. Note: the statistical information in the comment has been extracted from a post from a code learning website.