this is bbc news — the headlines: us investigators have found six more classified documents at the home of president biden. his lawyer says the search of the property in delaware took around 13 hours and some handwritten notes were also seized. the white house says it's continuing to co—operate. massive demonstrations have been held in israel against plans of the new right—wing government to overhaul the judicial system. there were more than 100,000 protesters in tel aviv alone. it was the largest demonstration since benjamin netanyahu's return to power last month. the bbc has been told that the british prime minister is "satisfied" with nadhim zahawi's account of his tax affairs. the conservative party chairman has said the uk tax agency

accepted an error with his taxes was "careless" rather than "deliberate". now on bbc news, talking business. hello, welcome to talking business. let's take a look at what is on show. as the global economy falters, is 2023 shaping up to be a year of big drop—offs? a growing number of major companies are already laying off workers in their thousands, so our employers also now taking back control of pay and conditions? i will hear from the head of the un international labour 0rganisation about why the globaljobs market is under pressure and why that could mean more social unrest. the big boss of global recruitment firm robert waters tells me what companies are demanding of new recruits as they try to keep profits flowing. also, is travel the answer

to our economic woes? expedia is one of the biggest travel firms, it's big boss will tell me if all that pent—up demand is still strong enough to keep us opening our wallets. wherever you arejoining me from, a big hello and welcome. january, it's the time of year when many of us take stock of our lives, and that often involves looking at our careers. is this the year to find a newjob? well, it might not be that easy in 2023. the global economy is teetering on the edge of recession, that's according to the world bank. and a growing number of companies are battening down the hatches and cutting jobs to get through the impending storm. big names are making the headlines, particularly evident in the tech sector, where the likes of amazon, microsoft, facebook�*s parent

meta, and twitter are feeling the impact as other companies spend less on advertising. in banking, concerns that companies have less cash to make deals means cuts to the likes of credit suisse, goldman sachs and morgan stanley. consumer goods firms are also under pressure. in recent months, ford and h&m, dutch medical equipment maker philips and the food delivery firm doordash all announcing job cuts. admin staff and headquarters are the ones in the firing line as their employers adjust to life. overall in the world's biggest economy, usa, its central bank expects unemployment to jump from 3.7 to 4.6% this year. and the european central bank expects the unemployment rate to increase from 6.5 6.9% in the eurozone. between them millions

ofjobs are expected to go into of the most important regions of the global economy. and in china, a lot of uncertainty about the impact of lifting these job cuts? companies are increasingly concerned that the slowing global economy will hit demand for their products. the world bank says globally, inflation is set to fall but it will still be over 5%. many goods will be more expensive thanks to the war in ukraine and ongoing impact of the pandemic. to counter that, many countries are expected to continue increasing the cost of borrowing. the picture in the g7 advanced economies. for consumers, it means more cash needed for basics, like housing, while energy costs are going up, and the companies higher interest rate means debts are more expensive to pay off and profits around the pressure. if that turns into less money going to shareholders�* pockets, the stock markets will fall. so companies try to save money by cutting their payroll as they become less

confident in the future. overall, the un's international labour organization, the ilo, is expecting that at least 3 million more people around the world will be unemployed this year, and also that the quality ofjobs out there will suffer. amongst other things that means pay that doesn't keep up with the cost of living and less job security. i had been speaking to the director—general. gilbert hungbo, a pleasure having you on the show, and let's start with this. your forecasts for this year don't paint a pretty picture, what are you expecting? the covid effects, where a lot of countries, particularly from the north, have started recovering while low—income or low—income economies are struggling with the impact of covid on one hand.

0n the other hand, we have tension starting with the war in ukraine, and its consequences. third is the inflation situation. when we put all of that together, it gives a picture that is not rosy. gilbert, in recent weeks we have heard of a growing number of big—name companies making big job cuts, like amazon, facebook parent meta, goldman sachs. i wonder, does it make you fear that more are to come? because big job cuts at those organisations can sometimes have a knock—on effect. clearly they will have a knock—on effect, that is very much worried that 2023, we will see that happening more. we project globally, we project employment growth, not more than i%, it's very little, and to unpack that, you have part of the world like north america where

unemployment would rise, in europe we expect more or less the same. when you look at that state and africa, we might have a 3% increase in employment, however when you look at the increase in the working population, that will again nullify a big part of that 3% gain, so globally you will see those announcements are quite serious. you also have concerns about the quality ofjobs out there, gilbert, sojust explain that and what it means for workers and their ability to make ends meet. yes, let me take you quick back to 2004—2019, we started... progress in informal into very formal economies. the informality since covid

has picked up again. the recovery is happening in the formal sector where we know there is no protection and no voice, no negotiation, and in a lot of cases where the real wages are going down, so that has a dampening impact on that quality of the jobs. what is quite unacceptable in my mind, as you and speaking, we estimate 214 million workers, unable to earn the $1.90 a day, which is the threshold for poverty. when we look at the covid situation and the lifting of restrictions in china,

there are suggestions that two thirds of the population now has the virus, surely that will have a negative impact on worker availability, in the world's second biggest economy. yes, this is a worry, normally we expect employment and growth to continue picking up in china. however, what we have seen with covid causes it to slow down, that potential. the second economy of the world it will underperform, and have not only a bit impact on the domesticjobs market but also on the global economy and therefore on the global employment situation. and given the picture you have been painting, if we do see more job cuts and more unemployment, do you think that could lead to social unrest? gilbert, basically i am asking, are you expecting to see social unrest in different

parts of the world? i think so, i think unfortunately we will. when you take all of that together, i cannot say that clear enough, we need all together the multilateral, bilateral private sector, we need to take a step back and redefine parameters for moving forward. how to best balance the search for profits, which is legitimate, but the protection of the environment and protection of the social, having those three dimension feel much more at par. on that note, gilbert huungbo, director—general of the international labour organization, thank you, i will talk to you soon. thank you for having me on your show today. so what does all this mean when it comes to companies actually hiring staff? are they still expanding

their headcount? robert walters, a recruitment agency, globally, operates in 30 countries. i've been catching up with its chief executive. pleasure having you on, thank you. let's start with your company, you're talking about a softening of recruitment activity levels, so i want you to paint me a picture, toby, what is that, what does i've done this nearly 25 years, we came out of 2020 with a depressed market, globally, i have never seen the catapult effect that came out of 2020. the rate at which companies were hiring was dramatic, we went through a market 2021 which i certainly haven't experience. that continued with even more speed in 2022. this is all hiring? yes, on the backdrop of increasing candidate shortages, globally.

more prevalent sectors like technology, legal, and we got to the ukraine crisis that had an impact, some of the challenges in china with continued lot dance, and we started to see that compounded with all of the lack of candidate flow that we saw. so a lack of people? yes, lack of supply chain for a number of different reasons, post covid we saw increased nationalism, increased people turning back to their native countries for often family reasons, so a general thinking of the workforce, so the markets have definitely softened in the last three months. we still had a very strong performance last year across our business globally, that tailed off a bit towards the back end of last year, now entering this year with a degree of caution. interesting, you talk

about the big inflation picture, it is softening back last week on my show and i had the head of the international monetary fund, the imf, saying that the negative impact of higher interest rates typically has a lag on the labour market, it takes time for the uninitiated, it takes time to feed through the pipeline. my expertise is recruitment, the fact is when you have a lack of supply chain and people, you end up any situation where if copies want to continue to grow, they have to pay only don't have that choice. we saw a softening in the technology sector. pretty big! i think is more a correction, technology has been hit, it is right sizing, if i think about my view on this would be nick three years, no question that technology, digitalisation, transformation will continue to be where the heart of a lot of hiring still exist. talking of those lay—offs, notjust tech, we have seen recently big tech firms

and also big banks, goldman sachs to name one, laying off thousands. do you think that's a sign of things to come? others will follow suit? i'm not so sure. we are definitely incautious temperatures at the moment, but... the big central banks in the world, america and europe, they say this yet unemployment will rise, meaning millions of people will lose theirjobs in 2023. they have said they expect a small increase in unemployment, my personal view is because of the shortage of candidates, that is the otherfactor, there is no question economically we are in much tougher conditions, that is likely to continue, but the simple fact is we don't have enough people. toby, i'm curious about what sort of conversations you are having with your clients. i'm thinking given

the messy picture, are they somewhat reluctant to commit to filling jobs? i think it is country—dependent, sector dependent but generally speaking there is a view common trends so hybrid working as one, that almost a past tense, here to stay, there is a real balance around ensuring that we have and maintaining a responsibility to get the younger workforce together though. we talk about a lack of experience and skills, so whilst i am a supporter of it, i also believe there needs to be a balance of people coming together in the workforce. i think wage inflation is really challenging at the moment and we know certainly on this side of the world, less so in asia—pacific, we see the rate of inflation outpacing the general salary levels being offered. and that is a real concern because everybody, particularly business leaders, are trying to manage looking after their people, retaining their good people, recognising the cost of living

and clearly doing what you can as a responsible employer to support that, but recognising the general overall cost base. correct me if i am wrong here, toby, but your company focuses on professional office jobs. in the us, that picture is under pressure as companies try to cut costs, letting go some of their labour force, its back—office, its management. whereas obvoiusly keeping the front line workers, you know face—to—face. i'm just wondering, thosejob losses in the office, the back office, etc, will that eventually feed through to possiblyjob losses in other areas? so i think broadly, what i'm seeing and hearing from my clients, companies are reluctant to obviously let people go unless they have to. clearly, they need to manage cost space and some people are losing jobs. people have realised how difficult it has been in the last two years

to secure and retain good people. we are seeing increased off—shoring because of generally the wage inflation, so the us, uk — high—cost locations. so, we are seeing opportunities particularly in places like india, manila, where actually, some of these eastern european locations as well, but seeing people now looking at skills which perhaps can be utilised in other lower—cost jurisdictions. we still have these shortages across the globe, so actually i feel reasonably positive about this year — i'm not suggesting it will be an easy year — but i don't necessarily think we are in the same place we were perhaps in the great financial crisis, which was a very different experience. on that point, a pleasure having you, thank you, toby fowlston. as we have been saying, the global economy faces a multitude of challenges this year but does the travel industry offer a glimmer of hope that many are desperate for?

you know, before the pandemic, one in ten jobs on the planet was supported by travel and tourism. and now that most countries have left coronavirus firmly in the distance, could the huge pent—up demand for travel be enough to prise consumers�* wallets open to prevent the world falling into recession? well, expedia is one of the biggest names in the travel game and i've been catching up with its big boss. peter kern, a pleasure. thank you for your time. peter, this week's show, i've been looking at the job market for 2023 and look, we know it has been a horrid few years for the travel and tourism industry — in fact in 2020, 62 millionjobs were lost in the industry — that's a loss of almost 20%. where are we today, peter? are all thejobs back? well, not alljobs are back but that is mainly because people haven't always wanted to go back to the jobs. as you've seen, it has been harder to get employees back since the pandemic, ut by and large,

it has come back. i think service levels are quite good in most of the industry but as you've seen, airlines, hotels, other big travel categories, they have struggled to get employees back in. —— to get employees back in at the same rates and of course, they have had to pay more, given inflation over the last several years, still ongoing. i think we will continue to see the airlines trying to staff up as they have more demand in the coming years. but we have seen issues with that over the last couple of years as they are trying to get employees back as quyickly as they'd hoped. those job losses massively impacted people's travel experiences. things are now improving but in the last year or so, travel has been challenging. long queues at airports, not enough staff, from airports to hotels. how have you coped as a company with what must have been some pretty unhappy customers? yes, we have invested over

the last several years millions of dollars on servers, that is a lot along the technology lies, making it easier for people to change plans, get information quickly, do it on their phone, app, so we have done a lot to improve that, that has become more efficient and better for the traveller, it's been better experience, and we have improved our relationships with our partners, be it airlines, hotels, etc, so that together we can solve these problems more quickly. peter, i wonder, how difficult is it for you as a company to make projections on pricing when we look at the current state of inflation at the moment, which are still very high? as you know, aaron, prices have moved quite a bit — any consumer knows that over the last years — but prices have stabilised now, we're not seeing the same increases we were seeing, demand has somewhat stabilised, market still have to come back like china and others, but we will see how that impacts things. but we've seen a bunch of inflation, it doesn't seem

like it is abating or not in any scale, and i expect we will see fairly stable pricing for a while. i don't think we'll see the same kind of acceleration we saw for a few years during covid, which was quite extreme. with all the current challenges people are facing, how are your bookings holding up? do you see them being maintained this year? we have seen it as one of the things, travel has remained a core necessity, need, desire for most consumers. while other categories are waning because of inflation and other issues, we have seen that since covid, there was a deep demand to get out again. that seems to have persisted. so, we expect to see demand continue, it has continued, pretty strongly, so it doesn't mean there won't be pockets or economies of the world that have issues and we may see some slowdowns in some places, but so far through the holidays, interest in travel is high. asian countries opening up.

before the pandemic, as you very well know, travel and tourism accounted for about 10% of the global economy — around one in tenjobs on the planet. despite the tough economic situation, do you think can all of this pent—up demand for your industry can stop the world economy from falling into recession? we will hold up our end of the bargain, i don't know about the global economy with fuel and other issues, but so far, at least, travel has been quite resilient through all of this and i think again, it is about people prioritising travel and experiences over some of the other things that were prioritised. we had ad ad campaign during covid, as we came through covid, which was you bought enough stuff, now go and live your life and get experiences. we had a big campaign for that, not because of us but people

are now doing that, you're probably doing it, i am, you remember how valuable that is in terms of making a good life, and people are prioritising it over other things. so, i hope we will do at least our part for the global economy. the online travel market is vast, but dominated by a few big names. in many cases, you may be offering similar products, aggregating, for example, flights and hotel rooms that are not exclusive. i just wonder, how do you as a company stand out from the rest? yeah, i think that is all about the experience. so, partly, it's about making sure you pick the right things. we've introduced a new way of raising our hoteliers, based on experience. we have data that comes in, tells us if the consumer has had a bad experience — notjust reviews but cancellations or problems they have called about — and then, we are constantly providing and working our partners to provide great deals for our members. we provide loyalty points if you travel with us that you can put immediately towards

your next trip. so, there's consumer offerings like that. and really the technical capabilities to help match you to the right project, personalise the experience and make it really easy if something goes wrong for you to fix that. i think that's what people value. let's talk about the great news for the travel industry — the reopening of china from its zero covid policy. china's travel is usually important to the tourism industry — in fact, the biggest tourist spenders on the planet. how much of an impact are you seeing now there? we have seen a tonne of interest. i would say the impact will take some time to come, as you will have documented across your network. china is opening up, but it is having covid spikes. it's also dealing with what the rules will be about foreign travel and tp to different countries. then you have got the

question of air planes. there is quite a bit less plane traffic into and out of china right now, so a lot of big carriers from around the world who used to have tonnes of flights in every day now have a few, so while it is opening and there is a lot of interest, i would say will take some time to get through the machinery, can through and get the volumes up. peter, let me end on this — what travel trends are you seeing taking shape for 2023, and do they differ from region to region? they definitely differ but the big trends are clearly are, as i mentioned, there's a renewal around some of the big world events and people getting to those cities where some of those events are happening, we're seeing a lot of interest in that. we're only a couple of months out now from tokyo being a hotspot and other areas where there are big moments coming that people might have missed last year, whether it's worldpride

in sydney or the edinburgh festival — that is clearly a trend. we've seen a lot of trends around, people getting excited about what they are seeing on television — that has been a popular trend that we have seen in the last couple of years, maybe because covid has made him watch a lot more television. but we're seeing a lot of that, where people have seen a movie or watched a show that's about a place and now, they all want to go there. in general, i think we are seeing this normalisation of the big cities being popular, all the biggest destinations being popular — that will be a global trend. i think we'll see a continued normalisation but there are differences. we are seeing vacations remaining strong, a big lift during covid, that will continue to be strong, not huge changes but people have experienced different things and will continue to want to experience those. well, on that point, peter kern, the big boss of expedia group, i appreciate your time, thank you forjoining me,

good luck, check in with you soon. thanks so much, aaron. appreciated. take care. that's it for us this week. i hope you enjoyed it. keep up with all the latest on the global economy on the bbc news website and smartphone app. follow me on twitter. i will follow you back! thank you for watching. see you soon. goodbye. hello. we have seen some cloudier, milder conditions moving in from the north—west but many of us further south and east have still got clear skies overhead and some frost and some fog. nearer the ground, this is the picture in sowerby bridge a little bit earlier on. now, we're going to see a real mix through the course of sunday. still sticking with the cloudier, milder theme in the north and west with some rain around, but further south and east, cold, frosty with some lingering fog, too. and that contrast�*s down to the fact that we've still got this cold air mass with us across central and southern areas. but this weather front in the north and the west is bringing milder conditions

and some fairly patchy rain through the course of the day, too. so, for the rest of the overnight period, there's that rain, then, pushing in across the west of scotland, northern ireland. fog forming through the early hours across many central, eastern and southern parts of england in particular, so to start off our sunday morning, we're going to see temperatures down to about —6, possibly —7 degrees towards the south and east but frost—free in the north—west. so, through the day on sunday, then, there's that early fog in the east, slowly clearing away. some rain for parts of western scotland and through some of these irish sea coasts, pushing into pembrokeshire, perhaps cornwall, for instance, as well. some sunshine develops once that fog slowly lifts away from southern and eastern england but it will feel cold — just two or three degrees in the east, even colder if you see the fog lingering, but perhaps double figures for the likes of belfast, for instance. some clearer skies for a time across the north of scotland.

as we move through sunday night now into monday, more of the same — cold and frosty towards the south and east with temperatures down below freezing but frost—free with milder weather holding on across scotland and northern ireland. so, we've got this area of high pressure which is really building across much of the uk as we move through into monday. just weather fronts in the far north there. so, i think there could be some rain in the far north of scotland and northern isles, for instance, and the odd splash around some of these irish sea coats. some sunshine again developing for the bulk of england and wales after that fog gradually clears away. so, top temperatures again around 3—5 degrees, on the chilly side, but there'll be some sunshine towards the south and east, milder but cloudier in the north and the west. and then, as we head through the middle of the week, still high pressure around, perhaps just a weak front just making its way south and introducing a few splashes of rain. but in the outlook, generally, a lot of dry weather. it will be turning milder through the week ahead but also rather cloudy at times, too. bye— bye.

welcome to bbc news — i'm lucy grey. our top stories: investigators seize more classified documents from president biden�*s home in the us state of delaware. thousands of israelis take to the streets against benjamin netanyahu's right wing coalition in what could be the biggest anti—government protests in a decade. the british prime minister says he has confidence in nadhim zahawi, after the conservative chairman admitted to what he called a "careless" error with his taxes. turkey condemns the burning of a copy of the quran during a protest in sweden, describing it as a "vile act".