Employment

Hong Kong’s jobless rate understates harsh reality

6 May 2020

The 4.2% figure is implausibly low given the protests and the pandemic. With U.S. unemployment expected to reach 20%, the Asian financial hub’s distorting omissions of many classes of workers are left exposed. Restaurant receipts and retail sales hint at the true economic damage.

Eerie currency calm jeopardises more banking jobs

30 Jan 2020

Major exchange rates have been relatively stable because economies are moving in synch and global monetary policy is broadly accommodative. That makes foreign exchange less of a money-spinner for banks. Expect the ranks of FX traders and sales staff to shrink further.

Review: India can reimagine tech and jobs, again

29 Nov 2019

Tata shook up the way people and technology work. Now artificial intelligence can help create employment, the Indian group’s Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran argues in “Bridgital Nation”. It’s a refreshingly contrarian view on the problem, even if many questions go unanswered.

Stand-in HSBC boss passes first interview question

7 Oct 2019

Noel Quinn may cut 10,000 jobs at the UK bank. A decisive move on costs would mark him out from predecessor John Flint and marginally boost pathetic returns in Europe. A bigger test of his suitability for the full-time job is whether he can sort HSBC’s struggling U.S. business.

Weaker Aussie jobs clear fiscal spending path

19 Sep 2019

More people worked Down Under in August, mostly because of an increase in part-time positions. Overall unemployment ticked higher to 5.3%. It makes another interest rate cut more likely, but goosing government outlays would be a more effective option for the cooling economy.

Facebook sets diversity goals for others to follow

10 Jul 2019

The $570 bln social network wants at least half its staff to be women or from minorities in the next five years. Aside from being more representative, a more inclusive staff can help the bottom line. Facebook is not aiming for the stars, but it’s doing more than many companies.

Deutsche Bank accidentally boosts boutique model

10 Jul 2019

The lender’s enforced decision to shut its cash equities business raises the question of whether investment banks need armies of traders and analysts to back up stock offerings. A leaner platform could show they don’t. That would be a shot in the arm for smaller rivals.

Andrea Orcel could benefit from his own advice

5 Jul 2019

The former UBS investment bank boss is suing Santander for 100 million euros after the Spanish bank yanked an offer to make him CEO. A lengthy battle will further cloud the rainmaker’s future career. Breakingviews imagines what counsel the hard-charging banker might give himself.

Review: The conundrum of no good jobs

5 Jul 2019

Low unemployment in the U.S. and UK hides a grimmer reality, economist David Blanchflower argues in his new book. Weak wage growth and widespread despair have prompted people to turn to populist leaders. He makes a compelling case for why policymakers can still rev up growth.

Canopy ouster catapults cannabis into adolescence

3 Jul 2019

The biggest producer of legal weed has fired founder and co-CEO Bruce Linton amid widening losses and tensions with biggest investor Constellation Brands. Capital has rolled into cannabis based on little more than grand ideas. Fighting over how it’s spent is part of growing up.

Deutsche Bank blood-letting is a necessary start

1 Jul 2019

The German lender is considering axing up to 20,000 jobs. Ditching one in five workers would show boss Christian Sewing is prepared to take tough decisions to raise profitability. Return on equity would improve, provided the departing staff don’t take too much revenue with them.

Cool U.S. jobs report helps Fed run economy hot

7 Jun 2019

Employment gains in May were weak. The volatile data doesn’t yet reflect the latest trade tensions. Meanwhile, traders are betting the central bank will soon cut rates rather than stand pat. Weak inflation and rising productivity give the Fed room to do so, but it may take time.

Review: Rockonomics nicely reflects the real world

7 Jun 2019

Alan Krueger’s posthumous work on the finances of rock and roll functions in equal parts as a basic industry primer, a textbook on broader economic concepts and a guidebook for musicians wanting to start a band. It’s also a window, if an imperfect one, into the author’s soul.

More American workers take one for the team

3 May 2019

U.S. job creation accelerated in April, trimming the unemployment rate to a 50-year low of 3.6 pct. Yet wage growth remains modest and other data suggest slack in the labor market. Employees getting less than their historical share is the price for keeping the recovery going.

Recruitment is weak link in U.S.-China tech war

18 Mar 2019

Trump officials are building IP theft cases and mulling AI export bans. But the government can’t stop Chinese firms from opening offices stateside and hiring from rivals: Tesla wannabe Nio has 600 workers in San Jose. Talent is fair game and U.S. firms must fend for themselves.

Review: Gig-economy firms tread precarious path

8 Mar 2019

The likes of Uber tapped casualised labour to become global giants. They have created a “precariat” class of workers, open to exploitation and abuse. Colin Crouch’s “Will the Gig Economy Prevail?” offers a manifesto for a benign alternative, but underplays technological shifts.

Brexit paints go-slower stripe on UK car industry

19 Feb 2019

Plant closures like Honda’s in Swindon raise the spectre of decline for Britain’s auto sector. Yet the underperforming site always looked vulnerable. The bigger test is whether global carmakers want to build electric vehicles in the UK. Brexit will prove a huge deterrent.

Amazon, NYC shoot selves and each other in foot

14 Feb 2019

Jeff Bezos’s company is ditching its Big Apple HQ plan after local opposition to the $3 bln in incentives it would receive. It makes Amazon look short-term greedy and uninterested in community concerns. Punchy politicians, meanwhile, have cost the city jobs and tax revenue.

Healthy U.S. job growth tells markets to cheer up

1 Feb 2019

Employers added a robust 304,000 positions last month. The jobless rate rose to 4 pct but it’s due to the government shutdown. The Fed recently reassured gloomy investors worried about global growth. But the U.S. economy is a better guide for the central bank than stock prices.

Review: The hollowing out of white-collar work

25 Jan 2019

New technologies and international trade have been disrupting jobs for some time. Now automation and global competition will do the same thing to Western services industries, Richard Baldwin argues in “The Globotics Upheaval”. Dysfunctional democracies are ill-prepared to cope.