Wessex Water will pay £11 million toward upgrades after the industry watchdog found it failed to properly manage its wastewater network.

The water company, which serves around 2.9 million customers in the South West, was made to pay the enforcement package by regulator Ofwat.

By agreeing to the extra investment in its network, the firm avoids having to pay a fine.

It will be paid for by shareholders and not through customer bills, the watchdog confirmed.

Wessex Water failed to operate, maintain and upgrade its network to ensure it could cope with flows of sewage and wastewater, Ofwat found in its investigation.

The investment package will go towards a series of upgrades, including helping private landowners to seal their sewer pipes to avoid unnecessary groundwater reaching its network, and bringing forward investment into reducing spills at specific storm overflow areas.

Money will also be spent on installing monitoring equipment and helping customers to sustainably manage rainwater at their properties.

Ofwat said Wessex was the sixth case it had completed in its wider wastewater investigation, which has resulted in £250 million in fines and enforcement packages.

Lynn Parker, senior director for enforcement at Ofwat, said: “These cases are a crucial part of holding water companies to account and driving the transformation of the water sector that the public wants to see.”

Wessex Water had said it “regrets the impact our wastewater performance has had on customers and the environment”.

The company said the investment package “will tackle the problem directly” and that it was planning to invest £300 million in its sewerage infrastructure by 2030.

New Delhi: Well stocked granaries, low oil prices and longer-lasting drivers of core disinflation are likely to keep India inflation benign in FY27 as well, according to a new report. 

HSBC Global Investment Research said in its report that “we do not forecast more RBI repo rate cuts, but the risks, if any, are of more easing, if growth disappoints”.

November CPI inflation came in at 0.7 per cent (on-year), in line with market expectation. Despite a sequential uptick of 0.4 per cent (on-month), the annual prints remained depressed due to base effect.

Excluding gold, headline CPI remained in deflation (-0.1 per cent in November compared to -0.6 per cent previously).

“Deflation in food prices continued for a third month in annual terms. Sequentially, food prices rose 0.5 per cent on-month after two months of contraction. Vegetables prices picked up after falling for two straight months along with a rise in the prices of protein items like egg, meat and fish,” said the report.

“Gold prices kept core inflation elevated. With a weight of 1.1 per cent in the CPI basket and prices up 59 per cent in November, gold alone explains c63bp of CPI inflation. Our preferred definition of core (excluding food, energy, housing and gold) had been steady at 3.2 per cent y-o-y in 3Q25, and has now fallen to 2.5 per cent in November,” said the report.

Following a sharp fall in October, November goods inflation remained benign.

According to the report, strong cereal production, well-stocked granaries, and winter disinflation are likely to help keep a lid on food inflation over the near future.

“And it is not just easing food prices. The high base of last year is likely to keep CPI inflation soft for the next few months. Global oil prices, too, have been low, and cheaper imports from China will likely keep core inflation soft for a prolonged period,” it noted.

The RBI has lowered H1 FY27 inflation forecast by 50 bp (4.5 per cent previously to 4 per cent now).

“However our forecasts are 50 bp lower than the RBI’s (at 3.5 per cent). If we are correct, and the RBI eventually makes further downward adjustment to inflation, there would be space to ease further, if growth requires it,” said the report.

Last Updated:December 16, 2025, 08:36 IST

Amazon cuts 84 jobs in Seattle and Bellevue, separate from 14000 global layoffs, citing routine business reviews. CEO Andy Jassy links future reductions to generative AI expansion.

The spree of layoffs doesn’t appear to be ebbing despite large-scale firings in tech giants. Amazon has reportedly cut 84 jobs, separate from 14000 corporate layoffs in October globally, according to a report of Greekwire.

Amazon said as reported by Greekwire that these job cuts aren’t linked to broader workforce actions. “Each of its businesses regularly reviews its organizational structure and may make adjustments as a result. Terming it a “routine process”.

“We’ve informed a relatively small number of employees that their roles will be eliminated as the result of individual business decisions,” said Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser. “We don’t make decisions like this lightly,” he added, noting that the company is providing affected employees with 90 days of full pay and benefits, transitional health coverage, and job placement services.

As a new State law the State’s new version of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act. requires companies/employers to disclose all terminations within 90 days of a prior notice, Amazon intimated the Washington Authorities.

According to an Amazon filing, the separations are set to take place between February 2 and February 23, 2026, affecting staff across more than 30 office locations in Seattle and Bellevue, along with six remote employees based in Washington.

The roles impacted reportedly include software development engineers, program managers, recruiters, HR specialists and UX designers, spanning levels from entry-level positions to directors and principals.

Amazon said employees were informed beginning in early November and were given at least 89 days’ advance notice, well above the 60-day requirement under the law. The company added that employees who secure internal transfers before their separation date will not be laid off.

In June, CEO Andy Jassy, who has aggressively sought to cut costs since becoming CEO in 2021, said that he anticipated generative AI would reduce Amazon’s corporate workforce in the next few years.

Jassy said at the time that Amazon had more than 1,000 generative AI services and applications in progress or built, but that figure was a “small fraction” of what it plans to build. Jassy encouraged employees to get on board with the company’s AI plans after it announced plans to invest $10 billion building a campus in North Carolina to expand its cloud computing and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

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