Twenty jobs are at risk at Gem, a call centre company in Londonderry. The company confirmed it was in talks with staff over redundancies. Gem employs about 50 people at its Londonderry site and a further 9,000 in two offices in Belfast.

The minister for regional development in the Northern Ireland executive has confirmed that 75 jobs will be cut from Northern Ireland's bus and rail services next year. Conor Murphy said the losses would be across the Ulsterbus, Metro and Translink services. He said about 50 jobs would be shed from bus services, representing 1.5% of the workforce. Northern Ireland Railways could face 25 job losses, he added.

North Wales-based lawn company GreenThumb is to create 1,000 new jobs across the UK. The company has 186 branches across the UK and is predicting a 25% increase in business over the next two years. "We've grown steadily year-on-year over the past two-and-a-half decades, but since the recession our growth has accelerated dramatically," said David Collison, GreenThumb's marketing manager. "People are deciding to improve their properties rather than move. If they're not going away so much in the slump, they want to enjoy their gardens."