"It is absolutely right that we are hitting the emergency brake."

These are the words with which Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel announced the country will enter a strict shutdown for five days over Easter amid concerns over surging COVID-19 cases.

"The situation is serious. Case numbers are rising exponentially and intensive care beds are filling up again," said Merkel. "We are in a new pandemic."

Words that scared the European market, with stocks tumbling in early trading.

More positive news comes from the UK, where, after one year from the start of the first COVID-19 lockdown in the country, falling unemployment figures have boosted hopes the country's vaccine campaign is bringing forward an economic recovery.

But government officials say it's better to curb our enthusiasm: unemployment in the UK is expected to peak at 6.5 percent when the furlough scheme ends at the end of the year.

For some escapism from the ups and downs of the stock and labor markets, look to the gaming and cultural industries: Cineworld has announced it will reopen in April in the U.S. with the release of Godzilla vs. Kong, while Nintendo is teaming up with Pokémon Go's creator studio to bring a new augmented reality game to people's smartphones.

If that has piqued your interest, scroll down for our video that takes a deep dive into the gaming industry.

Another new product to potentially look forward to, this time in the automobile sector, is the new premium electric vehicle to be created by China's top car maker Geely. In our graph today, you can find the market share of the largest electricity producers in the EU.

Read on for more of the day's business news in full. 

Giulia Carbonaro

Digital correspondent 

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Unemployment in the UK has fallen for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic. The jobless rate fell back slightly to 5 percent in the three months to January, down from 5.1 percent in the three months to December, with an estimated 1.7 million people out of work.

Shares in Baidu have edged up slightly in their first day of trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange after a $3.1bn IPO. Stock in China's premier internet search engine rose 0.8 percent to just above their float price of $32 each. Baidu's debut in Hong Kong is one of a number of secondary listings by Chinese firms also listed on U.S. markets and was described as a "homecoming" by chairman and CEO Robin Li.

European stock markets dropped in early trading after Germany announced a strict Easter lockdown to fight the most recent surge in COVID-19 infections. Frankfurt's DAX 30 index retreated 0.5 percent to 14,581.26 points and the Paris CAC 40 lost 0.5 percent to 5,936.98.

Office space sharing firm WeWork has revealed it made losses of $3.2 billion last year as it pitches for new backers to restart its troubled business. Losses narrowed overall from the $3.5 billion wiped off the company's value in 2019. WeWork is seeking a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) aimed at a public flotation later this year with a targeted valuation of $9 billion.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs has agreed to reinforce its ban on staff from working on Saturdays after strong criticism from junior employees. In a recent review, a group of first-year analysts had complained that "inhumane" 100-hour weeks were impacting their mental and physical health. Bank CEO David Solomon, acknowledged that pandemic working had blurred the terms on employment conditions and responded by promising to hire more staff and "be more selective about business opportunities that we pursue."

China's top car maker Geely is to team up with parent Zhejiang Geely Holding to create a new premium electric vehicle venture. The brand called Zeekr is expected to rival Tesla in the Chinese market and will operate separately from the volume-led "Geometry" EV brand launched by Geely in 2019.

Swedish car giant Volvo has become the latest vehicle maker to warn of the impact of semiconductor shortages on production. The firm says it will implement "stop" days across its global truck manufacturing operations in the second quarter of the year.

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Software giant Microsoft is in talks to acquire San Francisco-based Discord, a platform that allows gamers to communicate by video, for more than $10 billion, as reported by Bloomberg. Discord has been growing since the beginning of the pandemic and global lockdowns and now counts more than 100 million monthly active users.

Facebook has been hit by a lawsuit in France brought by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which accuses the social media platform of failing to protect its users against hate speech. In particular, the complaint referenced death threats against journalists at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo posted on Facebook.

A painting by UK street artist Banksy titled Game Changer is expected to raise between $3.5 and $4.8 million for National Health Service (NHS) staff at auction on Tuesday. The black-and-white painting, which shows a small boy playing with a nurse doll wearing a mask and a cape, was created during the first wave of the pandemic.

Nintendo is teaming up with Pokémon Go studio Niantic to develop augmented reality smartphone games, the two companies announced on Tuesday. The first game, expected to launch sometime this year, will involve Nintendo's half-vegetable, half-animal Pikmin characters. Miyamoto, creator of Pikmin and other famous Nintendo characters including Super Mario and Donkey Kong, said the new app would be designed around "making walking fun."

Cineworld will reopen in the U.S. in April and in the UK in May, with Godzilla vs. Kong the first film to be released in theaters before any streaming platforms, as agreed in a deal with Warner Bros.

WATCH: Amid the global pandemic, many people turned to games for entertainment and as a way to virtually connect with friends and families. Over the past 20 years, games have evolved to place connectivity and socializing at their heart, resulting in the industry thriving at a time when so many other sectors are struggling.

After celebrating World Water Day on Monday, we talked to internationally recognized water resource management expert Kala Vairavamoorthy about how to guarantee equal access to this vital resource for everyone across the world.

Current figures suggest that 2.2 billion people currently have no access to safe water. Is any progress being made on tackling this issue?

We are making progress. And I would say in relation to water supply, we have some 800 million people who lack basic access to water services. But the bigger number is really the people who don't have access to safe water. I think the bigger challenge is around sanitation. And, you know, the [UN] Sustainable Development Goals address both water supply and sanitation. And with sanitation, we have something like 4 billion people who don't have access to sanitation. And I think more of the effort has to be focused on sanitation. And, of course, you know, used water or wastewater, which sanitation deals with, is potentially a water source. So if we treat that and manage that well, then we will be replenishing our water sources, which then allows us to improve the access to drinking water for others.

Alongside people needing water, it's also needed for businesses like agriculture and manufacturing and so on. So how do you balance these requirements from all those different sources?

Of course, without water, businesses would fail. Water flows from requirements from the fields that sort of grow the raw materials. It supports the complex supply chains and also the manufacturing facilities that businesses need. I think with businesses now, they recognize that water security is really a material risk. And when you look at the entire water cycle, 70 percent of water is consumed by the agricultural sector, 20 percent is consumed by the industrial sector. And what you're seeing developing and emerging is really people having a much more systems view, where they see the potential for the transfer of benefits from one sector to the other.

And finally... Since 2007, the number of electricity generating companies in the European Union has been decreasing. The graph below shows the market share of the largest generators in the electricity market in 2019 as a percentage of national production.