Welfare

Following revelations from Channel 4 News about the failings of welfare-to-work company A4e, further statistics show their poor performance happening in a region where jobs are plentiful.

Data obtained exclusively by Channel 4 News shows that the welfare to work company A4e secured sustainable jobs for just 3.5 per cent of its job-seekers under the government’s flagship Work Programme.

Greeks, fed up with five years of a bitter recession and almost 23 per cent unemployment, weigh the consequences of voting with their hearts or minds on the eve of a crucial election.

Argentina may be able to teach Greece a thing or two about financial collapse after fighting back from its own 2001 economic meltdown. But is Greece ready to listen?

Spain’s downgrade to one level above junk has Europeans worried the country may need much more than the 100bn euros earmarked for its basketcase banks.

Spain will ask for an estimated 40-100bn euros from Europe to keep its banks operating – but it may not know the extent of the crisis until mid June when two audits are completed.

A neo-Nazi Greek politician from Golden Dawn is reportedly suing two women he assaulted during a TV debate, claiming their misleading statements incited him to slap one and throw water at the other.

As Greece implodes under tough fiscal reform Ireland, the IMF’s ‘austerity poster boy’, votes on belt-tightening measures in a referendum too close to call.

Computer-maker Hewlett-Packard is cutting 27,000 jobs to save $3bn a year but worried UK staff won’t know their fate for months because the cuts will not be fully implemented until October.

The work and pensions secretary has accused the public accounts committee of “holding back” evidence over alleged fraud at the welfare-to-work company A4e from government investigators.

The public spending watchdog criticises a government department for its handling of private companies whose fraudulent practices cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds, writes Jackie Long.

The government has ended a contract with the company A4e to help find unemployed people work after an audit found “weaknesses” in A4e’s internal mechanisms for preventing fraud.

Voters enraged with austerity measures are preparing to vote again in June as Greece’s president looks set to fail in his eleventh hour bid to cobble together a coalition government.

In an election that has galvanised the French electorate, Socialist candidate François Hollande becomes president of France after defeating the incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

Europe awoke to an unpredictable future after elections in France, Greece and EU hopeful Serbia – exactly the type of turmoil that spooks bond and currency traders who crave stability.