Young Taiwanese entrepreneurs working in a start-up hub are offered attractive sweeteners. But this isn’t in California or even Taipei, it’s on the outskirts of Shanghai. The People’s Republic of China is setting its sights on Taiwan’s youth by encouraging them to relocate to the ‘mainland’. Wages in Taiwan have stagnated as its economic growth has failed to keep pace with that of China, prompting thousands of people to leave the island and head to the mega cities of the People’s Republic for better jobs and access to greater opportunities.

Presenter/Producer: Caroline Bayley

Image: Chinese flags in central Shanghai

Life expectancy is going up, pensions are declining. Meanwhile the official retirement age has been abolished, while the age at which you can draw your state pension is rising. As a result, more and more of us will have to work until our 70s, or even our 80s. So, asks David Baker, is this the end of retirement?

That may not be as bad as it sounds. For In Business, David meets people who could live a quiet, retired life, but choose not to. One founded a bikini company in her 70s, others sell vintage goods, or left organisations to set up on their own. For them, the very word "retirement" is negative, they love what they do, and wouldn't want to give it up.

Experts say that most of us will need to work into old age. Professor Lynda Gratton tells David that the previous life pattern of education-work-retirement will have to yield to a multi-phase one of different careers, broken up by breaks, even late-life gap years, and re-skilling. Why retire at 60 if you could live to 100?

The government, too, wants a million more over-50s in the workplace by 2022 - but not all employers are playing ball. Without the prospect of older staff leaving at a fixed retirement age, bosses are making them redundant instead, including by ugly means, and before they can draw a pension. Some companies though do value older people's skills and experience, and even take them on as apprentices. Until more organisations do this, however, it may be up to us to take matters into our own hands and prepare for a long working life.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius

Credit: Getty Creative Stock

Online banking has grown massively, and some new banks don't bother with a branch network at all. But as Ruth Sunderland discovers, some in the banking business still think high street branches and personal service have a bright future. So how far will this financial revolution go? Talking to leading players in the business, Ruth hears how those who want to manage our money are full of new ideas, but facing huge uncertainty about what banking will become.

Producer: Chris Bowlby

Picture Credit: Shutterstock

Thousands of new consumer products are launched every year, and most end in failure. These flops are rarely discussed, and quickly forgotten. The Museum of Failure in Sweden is taking a different approach, showcasing some of the world's most flawed products and services. Ruth Alexander talks to curator Samuel West, and some of the product designers, about what we can learn from commercial mistakes.

Producer: John Murphy

Image: The 1957 Ford Edsel parked outside the Museum of Failure in Helsingborg, Sweden Credit: BBC

Once known as a hugely successful " Asian Tiger" economy built on hi-tech manufacturing, Taiwan's recent economic growth has been relatively sluggish, wages have stagnated and young people are leaving for better paid jobs in China and elsewhere. So what does the self-ruled island need to do to start roaring again? Caroline Bayley reports from Taipei.

Producer and Presenter: Caroline Bayley

Image: Taiwan

Can tech entrepreneurs revitalise Southern Italy’s failing economy? Manuela Saragosa visits Naples – which has seen a huge exodus of its talented young people – to explore if a change of direction might be possible. She meets Neapolitans starting up high-tech businesses against the odds and explores why, rather surprisingly, in recent years the city has attracted significant foreign investment from big tech firms. What has been the city’s appeal? She also asks what the business reasons are for building a company in Naples rather than elsewhere. Can the benefits outweigh all the myriad problems?

Producer: Rosamund Jones

In just a couple of years, the fifth generation mobile network will be available. Like previous generations, 5G will offer consumers greater speed and capability when they use their smartphones and tablets. Advocates argue it is more than just the next step in that evolution. Lightning fast speed, greater bandwidth and more reliability have the potential to transform entire industries: from how a surgeon operates on us and the products we use are made, to how we are transported to and from work and home. In this programme, Keith Moore wades through the hype to see how this next step in mobile technology could be used in the real world. He visits London and Brighton in the UK and Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden and meets businesses both large and small who are already preparing for our 5G future.

Producers: Keith Moore and Smita Patel

As K-pop and K-drama go global, what are the secrets of their success? The Korean Wave - South Korea’s pop culture exports of music and TV dramas - has already swept across much of Asia, including the giant markets of China and Japan, bringing billions of dollars into the country’s economy every year. Now, with boy band BTS topping the US album charts, and hit dramas reaching streaming services around the world, the wave appears to be growing into a tsunami. How did this medium-sized Asian nation end up as the global entertainment industry’s biggest overachievers?

When you throw away rubbish, it can create an environmental problem – or a business opportunity.

Your old newspapers, tin cans and plastic bottles are someone else’s valuable harvest. Just like gold, steel, sugar or coffee, rubbish is traded all over the world as a commodity. If it can be recycled, it’s worth money.

Until recently, countries vied to recycle the waste of others. But now one of the main players - China - says it doesn’t want foreign rubbish anymore. That has sent this multi-billion dollar industry into turmoil and is forcing it to invent new solutions. Ruth Alexander reports.

Producer: Tony Bonsignore

What do digital nomads mean for the world of work?

A new army of digital nomads is wandering the world. Equipped with a laptop and willing to work anywhere that has Wi-Fi and a low cost of living, they are changing the way millions think about the world of work. But how do firms and Governments adapt to a fast moving, ever changing highly skilled and paid workforce that doesn’t even recognise borders? And do digital nomads represent the future of work or a threat to taxation systems and therefore the nation state? From Portugal to New Zealand via Cornwall, Jonty Bloom goes far and wide looking for answers.

Presenter: Jonty Bloom