LAURA SLATTERYwrites about the week in business

30,000

– About this number of Goldman Sachs employees are in line for a six-digit pay increase after the investment banking firm managed to turn in bumper profits.

 30 million

– This is the number of jobs that will be lost from OECD countries between the end of 2007 and the end of 2010 as a result of the credit crunch.

67

– Percentage of Irish people who claim to work while on holidays, according to a survey by Hotels.com.

12

– Percentage of Irish holidaymakers who go so far as to say they have checked their work e-mail "up a mountain".

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

'I know we have maybe been criticised because we weren't dismal enough, but we certainly thought we were being difficult during that period'

– Outgoing Central Bank governor John Hurley is sticking to his "we told you so" claim to have foreseen and forewarned the economic crash.

GOOD WEEK

Jet-setting pets

Taking your dog on a mini-break is now a lot more fun thanks to Pet Airways, the airline that takes itchy-footed four- legged creatures out of the cargo hold and into specially designed cabins, with stopovers for loo breaks, playtime and dinner. In a development that could make snakes on a plane more than just a movie, up to 50 animals will fly at any one time on the pets-only aircraft, which took its maiden flight from New York this week. Owners must slum it on regular airlines and meet up with their pets at the airport later, in what are sure to be emotional reunion scenes.

Matthew Robson

Fifteen-year-old work placement students are supposed to spend the time wondering where the toilets are, but not Matthew Robson, the schoolboy intern at Morgan Stanley, whose research note on teenage media consumption habits generated dozens of calls from the investment house's clients and made the front of the Financial Times. Among the targets for Robson's devastating adolescent logic were credit-draining Twitter updates. "Teenagers would rather text friends with that credit. In addition, they realise that no one is viewing their profile so their 'tweets' are pointless."

BAD WEEK

Tourism

Such desperation has enveloped the tourism industry that authorities are now pleading with low-paid, hard-worked frontline tourism workers to smile at the Texan backpackers who manage to make it past immigration authorities – and keep on smiling until their cheeks begin to sag and we start to reverse the 18.4 per cent decline in overseas visits reported this week by the CSO. Well, it’s probably cheaper to implore service sector staff to be nice than it is to actually invest in tourism infrastructure, right?

Burberry

Not even the hiring of the freshest local "It" girl ( Harry Potterstar Emma Watson) to model its trademark trenches was able to prevent British fashion house Burberry from sinking under the weight of recession, with sales dropping 4 per cent in the three months to June. The company, which is famous for its oft-bootlegged check, is one of several luxury goods group to capitulate to lower disposable incomes. Happily, its new spring/summer range is heavy on downturn-friendly denim.