WHO'S HIRING

• Fast-food restaurant McDonalds is creating 4,000 new jobs in Britain to cope with increased demand for its Big Macs, McNuggets and McFlurry ice creams.
• Supermarket giant Tesco could create 150 new jobs if it gets the go-ahead for a new-look store in Undergate Road, Dinnington in South Yorkshire.
• Twelve months after a developer bought the former Hepworth's Building Products site on Pollard Moor, Hapton in Lancashire, a major national company plans to base up to 1,000 workers on the new business park.
• Around 150 new jobs will be created at a 115-bedroom hotel in Yorkshire which is set to open next month at the Village Hotel and leisure club in Leeds.

WHO'S FIRING

• Waterford Wedgwood, manufacturer of fine china, is deciding whether to outsource 250 jobs from Stoke-on-Trent to Indonesia to cut costs and bring the company back into profit.
• Johnston Press is planning to close two Scottish free weekly newspapers and conduct further cost cutting measures in its local newspaper business placing 15 jobs at risk.
• Moneysupermarket.com, the price-comparison website, is shedding 54 staff, nearly a 10th of its workforce. The cuts are mainly from its Mortgage 2000 subsidiary.
• US financial services firm Wachovia plans to cut 6,950 jobs in a company-wide restructure, up from the 6,350 in previous estimates.