Tuesday newspaper round-up: Paramount Skydance, retail crime, unemployment

(Sharecast News) - Paramount Skydance has increased its bid for Warner Bros Discovery, Reuters reported on Monday, raising the stakes in the bidding war for the historic studio and its broadcast and cable TV assets in an effort to beat out rival suitor Netflix. It could not immediately be determined how the bid was revised. Warner Bros and Paramount declined to comment, while Netflix could not immediately be reached. - Guardian

Criminal gangs are "systematically" targeting shops, retailers have warned, with 5.5m incidents of shoplifting detected last year, costing the industry an estimated �400m. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has warned over "endemic" violence towards shop workers - who faced an average 36 incidents of violence involving a weapon every day last year - and said high levels of theft was causing "anxiety" among retail staff. - Guardian

Unemployment will surge to 5.5pc within months as the jobless rate climbs above the worst months of the pandemic, a Wall Street bank has warned. Economists at JP Morgan said unemployment will hit two million in the first half of the year as businesses hold off hiring in the wake of Rachel Reeves's �25bn raid on employers' National Insurance contributions (NICs), which kicked in last April. - Telegraph

Britain's reliance on foreign food imports is a threat to national security, the head of the National Farmers' Union (NFU) has warned. Tom Bradshaw will use a speech on Tuesday to call for more home-grown food production to boost the economy, as he claims that thousands of farms are fighting for survival. - Telegraph

Almost 90 per cent of firms in the FTSE 350 have achieved, or are close to meeting, a government-backed target to have 40 per cent of board positions held by women. The FTSE Women Leaders Review (WLR), published on Tuesday, reveals that 88 per cent of FTSE 350 firms had boards where at least 33 per cent of all positions were filled by women, with 69 per cent of firms meeting the voluntary 40 per cent target. - The Times

A New York investment bank has settled a lawsuit by a former analyst who claimed she was wrongfully dismissed for asking to be able to sleep more than eight hours a night. Kathryn Shiber, a junior analyst, alleged she was fired ten weeks into a three-year analyst programme at Centerview Partners soon after she informed the boutique firm that she had mood and anxiety disorders requiring her to sleep eight to nine hours a night. - The Times