Business Diary: February 7

Australia is struggling to fill key roles, according to new research. Workers who are good with their hands are urgently needed to fill a skills shortage in Australia, from bakers to engineers and physiotherapists, the latest statistics released by migration agent, VisaFirst.com reveal.

The latest overview of Australian skills shortages – broken down by those most in demand in each state – highlights professions such as construction, engineering and mining, as well as carpentry and bricklaying. Other trades required to fill the gap across numerous states include butchers, bakers and chefs.

Nurses, dentists, HR professionals and secondary school teachers rank highly, as do social workers, vets, mathematicians, statisticians and accountants.

Pilots are welcome in Western Australia and zoologists in the Australian Capital Territory.

There is little or no demand for landscape gardeners while journalists and stockbrokers could be out of luck entirely.

But why on earth would anyone want to leave Yorkshire?

Lawyers’ ‘soap opera’

DIVORCES are often fraught affairs, which is why feuding couples need lawyers to take the heat out of tricky situations.

Tonight, lawyers from York will take to the stage to highlight the virtues of collaboration.

Diary has often suspected that all lawyers are frustrated actors.

According to the blurb sent to the business desk, members of the York Collaborative Family Law Group will hold a ‘theatre style’ presentation in the historic setting of St William’s College in York.

Around 20 lawyers will take on the roles of bickering couples. Diary assumes they will act out stories that wouldn’t look out of place in soap operas.

There may not be any happy endings, but the event will at least show that there are plenty of ways of ending a relationship without getting bogged down in costly court cases.

Mark Day, head of the family law team from Langleys, who helped to organise the event, said: “While I cannot promise that the acting will be the best, it will be an enjoyable evening and a great opportunity to network.”

The other half suffers

IF you are in a relationship, you may find that your partner is reducing their spend on you, if new research from Santander Credit Cards is to be believed. The findings reveal that people in relationships in Yorkshire and Humber are cutting back the money they spend on their partner by 16 per cent because of the rising costs of living and financial concerns.

People in the region now spend on average £943 a year on their other halves for their birthday, Christmas, anniversaries, restaurants, drinks and other outings, despite previously spending £1,117 on them annually.

The findings reveal that across Britain people in relationships are reducing the amount they spend on their partner by an average of 20 per cent, from £1,103 to £879 a year.

Women say they are cutting their expenditure on their partners by 23 per cent compared to an 18 per cent reduction by men.

A taxing time

A LOYAL reader and diligent citizen duly completed his tax return and visited Dewsbury’s HMRC office with chequebook in hand to pay his dues to the Exchequer.

Alas, the staff would not accept his payment. “They told me they didn’t have any paying-in slips and they had no way of banking it,” said the exasperated reader.

“For a change, someone is trying to pay his tax and they didn’t want to take my money.

“It’s unbelievable.”

In the garage at parties

TO most people, the garage is a place for rusty bikes, discarded sofas, and occasionally storing the car.

But John Hayward, chief executive of Sheffield-based gas cylinder firm Pressure Technologies, has put his to a different use.

He’s converted his double garage into a bar, decorated in the colours of his regiment, and uses it for parties and charity events.

Hayward, an honorary Colonel of 38th Signal Regiment (V), has painted one wall of the bar in the volunteer regiment’s light blue, dark blue and green.

“It’s great for entertaining,” said Hayward.

“We get a takeaway, watch Zulu and have a drink.”