Car sales plunge as chip shortages choke off supply

New car sales plunged over the last three months in the United States despite strong demand, as the shortage of computer chips and other supply chain issues caused shutdowns at auto factories and choked off the supply of vehicles.

General Motors reported sales fell a third from a year-ago last quarter, and they were off 40% from the same quarter of 2019 before the pandemic roiled the car market. Sales at Stellantis, the company formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA Group, fell 19% from a year ago, and 27% from the pre-pandemic period. READ MORE

Watch out Amazon: These startups deliver in a matter of minutes

Have an instant craving for a bag of chips or ice cream and don't want to run out to the store? A new breed of startups in the United States is trying to deliver to customers with the munchies in as little as 10 minutes.

Companies such as Gopuff, Gorillas, Getir, 1520, Jokr, Buyk and Fridge No More are expanding delivery services in major US cities, and they're putting pressure on traditional grocers, convenience stores and e-commerce players to offer delivery options within minutes, instead of hours. READ MORE

Investments In Chips Hit Record Level As Tech Giants Look To Design Their Own

As the chip shortage continues to disrupt different sectors—perhaps most notably automotive—investors have flooded money into the design and processing of chips at a never-before-seen rate.

This rush to invest also comes at the same time more tech giants have unveiled plans to design their own chips—something that likely is not a coincidence. READ MORE

The workers who keep global supply chains moving are warning of a 'system collapse'

Seafarers, truck drivers and airline workers have endured quarantines, travel restrictions and complex Covid-19 vaccination and testing requirements to keep stretched supply chains moving during the pandemic.

But many are now reaching their breaking point, posing yet another threat to the badly tangled network of ports, container vessels and trucking companies that moves goods around the world. READ MORE

NLRB memo takes aim at NCAA, says college football, basketball players are employees

The National Labor Relations Board released a memo Wednesday stating that college football players and many other athletes should be regarded as employees, paving the way for athletes to unionize and negotiate their working conditions. 

NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo also threatened action against schools, conferences, and the NCAA if they continue to use the term "student-athlete," saying that it was created to disguise the employment relationship with college athletes and discourage them from pursuing their rights. READ MORE

IPOs slow down globally in Q3 after frenetic 2021 start

Initial public offerings (IPO) globally slowed in the third quarter of 2021 from their previous frenetic pace, but the number of listings in the first nine months of the year still was the highest since the dotcom bubble of 2000, according to Refinitiv data.

IPOs in the third quarter raised a total of about $94.6 billion, down 26.3% from the second quarter, as activity cooled due to a summer slowdown and U.S. scrutiny of Chinese listings following Beijing's crackdown on DiDi Global Inc just days after its New York IPO. READ MORE

Covid and remote work changed the workplace. Now let's change the work week — to 4 days.

There is an inconvenient truth about modern employment: Many people hate their jobs. Even before the pandemic, a global Gallup poll found that approximately 85 percent of people were not engaged at work.Two-thirds of Americans reported feeling negatively about their work, while 25 percent of British sick days can be traced back to stress generated in the workplace. READ MORE

Zoomers Are Poised To Drive The Entrepreneurship Boom

Generation Z, individuals currently between the ages of 16 and 24, may become the most entrepreneurial generation the world has ever seen.

The reasons for that involve sweeping cultural and sociological trends. The key enablers of those next-gen founders will be modern digital technologies: Social networks that make reaching large audiences possible; knowledge platforms that teach valuable business skills; and the cloud, which makes it possible to build solutions quickly, flexibly and cost-effectively. READ MORE

More Than 80% of Organizations Acted on DEI Initiatives in 2021

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is increasingly becoming a fundamental part of doing business, according to a new WorldatWork study.

“Trends in DEI Practices and Policies” shows that both management and employees see dramatic increase in DEI activities in the workplace. The study’s findings support what many observers have been saying: The social movements of 2020 and 2021, such as Black Lives Matter, provided an “a-ha” moment to business leaders. Instituting workplace DEI initiatives went from sounding like a noble concept to being a top-priority action item. READ MORE

5 ways to engage workers, limit departures in the ‘turnover tsunami’

An epic game of employee musical chairs is unfolding across industries as workers are voluntarily leaving their jobs in record numbers. Twenty-five percent of workers say they expect to leave their job this year, according to a recent survey from Prudential. In April alone, nearly four million people quit their jobs: the most on record. As a result, companies across industries are scrambling to deal with this so-called “turnover tsunami.” READ MORE

Automakers' problems are much worse than we thought

For a year and a half, a lack of computer chips has been plaguing the auto industry, forcing plants to shut down, delaying auto shipments and sending car prices through the roof. But that's not the only problem automakers face.

Industry experts say automakers are having trouble getting all manner of parts and raw materials for a variety of reasons, including Covid-related plant shutdowns by suppliers, logistical problems involving shortages of ships, shipping containers and truck drivers, and difficulty that some suppliers are having filling jobs. READ MORE

IAC Pursuing $2.5B Deal For Meredith Corp.

InterActive Corp., the digital media company founded by Barry Diller, is in advanced discussions to acquire magazine publisher Meredith Corp.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the talks, said a deal would value Meredith at more than $2.5 billion. The Iowa-based company, which recently sold its local TV stations to Gray Television, publishes People, Better Homes & Gardens and Entertainment Weekly. Meredith closed a $1.34 billion deal for Time Inc. in 2018, but People ended up being the only tentpole brand to stay under the tent. Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated were sold in separate transactions after Meredith determined they did not fit with its female-skewing lifestyle holdings. READ MORE

Marijuana jobs are becoming a refuge for retail and restaurant workers

Now instead of administering vaccines and filling prescriptions, he’s helping customers make sense of concentrates, tablets and lozenges. His pay is 5 percent lower, he said, but the hours are more manageable.

“I am so much happier,” said Zvokel, 46, who’s worked in retail since he was 18. “For the first time in years, I’m not miserable when I come home from work.” READ MORE

Parler CEO says Facebook demoting content ‘very worrying’

George Farmer, the CEO Parler, told FOX Business’ "Mornings with Maria" Friday, Facebook was "almost certainly" trying to censor free speech after it published guidelines to offer more information about how content is distributed on the platform. 

"They promoted content that they believe is in line with their ideological views and they demote content which they find to be outside the purview of mainstream conversation," Farmer told host Maria Bartiromo. READ MORE

They took a stand against Amazon for their drivers. They say it cost them their businesses

Ryan Schmutzer and Tracy Bloemer, owners of businesses that deliver packages for Amazon in Portland, Oregon, hit their breaking point this spring.

Both had run technically independent businesses since 2019 that usually rent vans owned by Amazon, and are paid by Amazon to deliver its packages. The businesses are called "delivery service partners," or DSPs, for short. DSPs have about 20-40 vans and up to 100 employees. The DSP program has expanded to nine countries, creating 158,000 jobs at 2,500 DSPs, according to Amazon. READ MORE

Biden's IRS bank account snooping plan faces mounting opposition

Banks are pushing back against a proposal from the Biden administration that could force them to turn over customers' account information to the Internal Revenue Service.

Under the plan, banks and other financial institutions would be required to annually report customers' account inflows and outflows of $600 or more to the IRS. The White House has estimated the policy, which would apply to bank, loan and investment accounts, could generate about $463 billion in additional revenue over the next decade. READ MORE

Why everybody’s hiring but nobody’s getting hired

Patrick Healy says he did everything right in his job search. After being laid off as a designer early on in the pandemic, Healy, 36, tried his hand at a couple of entrepreneurial ventures before looking for a new full-time position at the start of 2021. He estimates he applied for hundreds of positions, relying on nearly a dozen jobs boards, researching potential employers, and writing personalized cover letters to accompany his résumé.

For the most part, he heard nothing back, regardless of how qualified he was. READ MORE

General Motors reveals the Ultium electric motors that will power it into the future

The automaker revealed the three electric motors that will be featured across the upcoming lineup of electric models that will be built on its Ultium battery-powered platform.

The three motors come in three power levels and will be mixed and matched as required by each model. The trio includes a 180-kilowatt motor intended for front-wheel-drive applications, a 255-kilowatt motor that can be used in the front or rear and a 62-kilowatt auxiliary motor. READ MORE