Labor

A collection of 32 posts

UK: Nurses Reject Pay Offer, Plan More Strikes

On Friday, nurses in the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union rejected the UK government's offer of a 5% pay increase plus a minimum £1,655 ($2,050) cash bonus and set out plans for further strikes over the first May bank holiday....

Money

European Privacy Watchdog Creates ChatGPT Task Force

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB), a body that unites Europe's national privacy watchdogs, announced on Thursday that it had set up a task force to study ChatGPT, an important first step in developing privacy guidelines for chatbots....

Artificial Intelligence

French Constitutional Council Upholds Macron's Pension Plan

On Friday, France’s Constitutional Council approved a plan to raise the retirement age to 64, in a victory for Pres. Emmanuel Macron after three months of mass protests over the legislation....

France

Musk: Twitter 'Roughly Breaking Even'

In an interview with BBC broadcast live on Wednesday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk addressed several topics surrounding the company since his $44B purchase of the platform, including revealing that Twitter is “roughly breaking even.”...

Science & Technology

IMF: Interest Rates to Drop Once Inflation is Under Control

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that increased interest rates in major economies are likely temporary and will reduce once rising prices, caused by factors including the Ukraine War's impact on energy costs, are halted and reverted downwards....

Economic conditions & trends

Biden Labor Nominee Faces Challenging Confirmation Process

Julie Su, Pres. Biden’s nominee for labor secretary, is facing increased public opposition to her candidacy leading up to her April 20 hearing in the US Senate. She needs at least 50 votes in the Democrat-majority body, but support from all the Senate’s Democrats and independents isn’t cert...

Labor

Protesters in France Storm BlackRock Building

As protests over pension reforms continued to grip French cities, demonstrators forced their way into the building of US investment giant BlackRock in Paris on Thursday....

France

German Industrial Output Rises More Than Expected in February

After growing 3.7% in January, German industrial production rose for a second consecutive month in February, jumping 2% from the previous month at a significantly higher percentage than the 0.1% increase analysts expected....

Germany

US Market Added 236K Jobs in March

US employers added 236K jobs in March, while the unemployment rate decreased to 3.5%, the Labor Department reported on Friday....

Labor

McDonald's Temporarily Closes US Offices Ahead of Layoffs

McDonald’s Corp. has temporarily closed its US offices and started informing employees about layoffs as part of a broader company restructuring....

Restaurants

Italy Temporarily Blocks ChatGPT Over Privacy Concerns

On Friday, Italy's Data Protection Authority temporarily blocked the artificial intelligence (AI) software ChatGPT over data privacy concerns, making it the first Western country to take such action against the chatbot....

Artificial Intelligence

France Pension Protests: Bordeaux City Hall Set on Fire

In France's southwest city of Bordeaux, the front door of the town hall was set on fire as nationwide protests over pension reforms gripped the country on Thursday....

France

French Govt. Survives No-Confidence Vote, Pension Reform Becomes Law

After protests erupted against his controversial pension reform, French Pres. Macron's government survived two votes of no-confidence on Monday. Government officials filed motions for the vote after Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne used a special constitutional power, called Article 49:3, to push ...

Labor

Amazon Lays Off Another 9K Workers

Amazon on Monday announced it will lay off another 9K employees in the coming weeks, mostly in its advertising and cloud computing divisions — just two months after it terminated 18K people....

Unemployment

France: Macron Overrides Parliament, Passes Pension Reform

On Thursday, French Pres. Emmanuel Macron — invoking Article 49.3 — sidestepped a lower house of parliament vote on his controversial pension reform plan, raising the retirement age from 62 to 64....

France

California Court: App-based Drivers Are Contractors

A California appeals court Monday ruled to largely uphold Proposition 22, a voter-approved law that classified drivers for ride-share and delivery companies as independent contractors....

Verdicts & sentences

Powell: US Interest Rates May Increase More Than Expected

On Tuesday, US Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell indicated that the Fed may increase the size of its interest rate hikes and borrowing costs to higher-than-projected levels if the economy continues to be robust amid persistently high inflation....

Economic conditions & trends

US: Alleged 'Slavery Wages' Prompt Hunger Strike at ICE Detention Facilities

Around 45 detainees at two detention facilities run by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in California – the Mesa Verde and the Golden State Annex – are on a weeks-long hunger strike for alleged inhumane treatment....

Labor

Report: Twitter Lays Off 200 More Employees

Twitter on Saturday reportedly laid off roughly 200 employees – about 10% of its remaining workforce – in CEO Elon Musk's continued attempt to cut costs. Those laid off included product managers, data scientists and engineers, and some from the monetization infrastructure team....

Labor

Biden Administration Creates Task Force on Migrant Child Labor

US Pres. Biden’s administration Monday announced plans to crack down on child labor — including establishing a joint task force between the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services to improve information sharing between the two agencies....

Labor

US Labor Strikes Increased Almost 50% Between 2021 and 2022

According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Wednesday, nearly 50% more US workers were involved in strikes in 2022 than in the previous year — 120.6K up from 80.7K in 2021....

Labor

Ford Cutting One in Nine Jobs in Europe

US automaker Ford said Tuesday it plans to cut thousands of jobs across Europe over the next three years as part of a global effort to reduce costs and be competitive in the electric vehicle market....

Metaculus

Disney to Lay Off 7k Employees

On Wednesday, Walt Disney Co. announced plans for 7k layoffs – representing a 3.6% reduction in its global workforce – and a broad restructuring of the company in the aftermath of the release of its first quarterly results since the reinstatement of CEO Bob Iger....

Labor

CVS to Buy Oak Street Health

In its third largest deal in the last decade, CVS Health Corp. has agreed to buy Oak Street Health Inc. and its primary care centers for $10.6B, or $39 a share, representing a roughly 73% premium to Oak Street's last closing price.

Medicine & healthcare

Spotify Laying Off 6% of its Workforce

Music streaming platform Spotify announced Monday the company will be laying off 6% of its global workforce, which is about 600 employees

Computers & internet