Figures in today from one company bucked the trend a little – but it’s hardly surprising.

Begbies Traynor, the insolvency people, are expecting more people to need to call on their services due to the impending recession.

Recently released figures showed that in the UK alone, over five and half thousand companies were facing “critical problems” in the final three months of 2008, compared to just over three thousand a year earlier.

The worst hit types of businesses were in advertising, construction and transport and communications.

When it comes to family finances, it seems that more and more of us are visiting the “value retailers”, with many of them planning to take on more staff as a result of this canny shopping – after all, there are still families to feed, despite the constant reminding about hard times.

After having good Christmas trading figures, Sainsbury’s are planning to be able to offer 5,000 new jobs this year, starting with the good news that 2,000 of the temporary Christmas workers being offered permanent posts.

Now isn’t that just a tiny bit of good news?