DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Almost 30,000 Amazon employees have signed an internal petition to fight the company's return-to-office mandate. Read the full copy here.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Eugene Kim | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

New mandate requires most office workers to come into the office at least 3 times a week starting in May. About 3 weeks since the announcement of the new policy, more than 29,200 Amazon employees have signed an internal petition opposing the mandate. Roughly 30,000 Amazon employees have joined that Slack channel, which was created shortly after the RTO announcement. In the petition, Amazon employees added internal data supporting continued remote work and dozens of comments explaining why they oppose the change. A 2013 Stanford University study of Chinese workers found that remote workers are 13% more productive than their in-office counterparts.

☆ Fed’s reluctance to go green will cost the Earth
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Ben Winck | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Central banks don’t think they can do much about the environment. The U.S. Federal Reserve has done even less, arguing it should not tackle climate change without an explicit order from Congress. In a 2021 survey by Invesco, 63% of responding central banks said addressing climate change fell within their mandate. Central banks aren’t best equipped to lead the green transition, anyway. There’s also a valid concern that focusing on climate change could water down the Fed’s mission to fight inflation.

☆ Schools want to close the Covid learning gap before federal funds run out — here’s how it’s going
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Jessica Dickler | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The pandemic disproportionately impacted the lowest-performance schools and students, the McKinsey report also found, putting them further behind their high-performing peers. "The schools that had the greatest need suffered the greatest losses," Baker said. "Each district is so different," said Kusum Sinha, superintendent of Garden City Public Schools in New York, which is considered high performing. With federal funding, the Garden City school district hired more staff, added before- and after-school tutoring in math and reading, and created an in-person and online summer program. "If we run out of money, we're going to have to figure out a way to continue," Sinha said.

☆ Gourmet fish bladder races chicken, beef to profitability in Singapore's lab meat push
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Chen Lin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Two years after Singapore greenlighted lab-grown meat for human consumption, mass production has yet to start. The technological, regulatory and scale barriers to entry for cultivated meat are very high compared to plant-based meat, said Didier Toubia, chief executive of Israel's Aleph Farms, which makes cultivated beef steak. "It's too high and it's embarrassing ... We lose money every time someone enjoys our cultivated chicken," Eat Just CEO Josh Tetrick said. Hong Kong-based Avant Meats is more bullish than Eat Just, with ambitions to make a premium food, cultivated fish maw. Fish maw is the swim bladder of a fish, a delicacy prized in China that could fetch up to thousands of dollars per kilogram, depending on its grade.

☆ Biden is set to use his first veto to save what Republicans call a "woke" rule that lets retirement fund managers consider companies' social and environmental records
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Senate voted to overturn a Labor Department measure allowing investment managers to make socially and environmentally conscious investing decisions. "Republicans' hypocritical resolution to nullify @USDOL's ESG rule ties investors' hands & would force their extremist views on investors," she wrote on Twitter following the vote. It's the latest back-and-forth in an ESG debate triggered by former President Donald Trump, who prohibited financial managers from making such considerations when he was in office. However, the White House has said that Biden will use his first veto as president to protect ESG considerations. As CNBC's Brian Schwartz reported this week, Trump allies and wealthy donors have funded Republicans' fight against ESG investing.

☆ Walmart to nearly double its U.S. health center locations in 2024
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW YORK, March 2 (Reuters) - U.S. retailer Walmart Inc (WMT.N) said on Thursday it would open 28 new healthcare centers in the United States next year, including its first ones in Missouri and Arizona. By the end of 2024, the nation's largest retailer by revenue will have more than 75 Walmart Health centers across the United States, it said in a statement. Located inside Walmart Supercenters, the new Health centers will cover about 5,750 square feet and offer services including primary care, dental care, behavioral health, labs and X-ray, audiology and telehealth. The company operated 32 Walmart Health care centers at the end of 2022 and plans to open 17 more this year. Walmart will open the first of the new Health centers in the first quarter of 2024, and end the year with 10 locations in Dallas, eight in Houston, six in Phoenix and four in Kansas City, it said.

☆ A psychology expert shares the 7 toxic signs of 'highly insecure' people—and how to deal with them
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Stefan Falk | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

And through my research, I've found that insecure people are often the most difficult to deal with. Here are their most common toxic behaviors, according to Harvard career expert Amy Gallo :Insecure types are extremely risk averse and unproductive. While feeling insecure is natural, problematic behaviors can develop when people consistently attempt to conceal or compensate for their self-doubt. Insecure types — whether in the form of a team member or boss — are all around us, so it's important to know how to deal with them efficiently. Count the interactions you've had with the insecure person.

[1/5] An employee prepares online grocery orders in the storage area of Czech online grocer Rohlik Group in Prague, Czech Republic February 1, 2023. HUGE GROWTH POTENTIAL Rohlik, founded in 2014, leads the Czech market by mainly targeting customers in big cities through its string of distribution warehouses. "Competition is still mainly driven by stationary retail but a small number of online grocery players are gearing up in each market to become leading e-grocery platforms." KOSIK TURNS EASTAs Rohlik bets on Germany, Kosik is looking eastward, entering the Slovak market and expanding in Bulgaria. CEO Ivan Utesil said the company would also seek to cut into Czech market share by capitalising on its tie-in with German wholesaler Metro (B4B.DE) in some regional areas.

☆ 42% of IT professionals will quit in the next 6 months. Here's how the right software can help them avoid burnout.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Sponsor Post | Created Insider Studios With Goto | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The right software can help businesses who can't find the staff they need. Worldwide the talent shortage could result in unrealized output of $449.70 billion. Alarming numbers underscore the fact that the talent shortage is everywhere. GoTo Resolve can help irrigate the IT desert by providing remote access troubleshooting, support, ticketing, and camera sharing a click away. Essentially, many of the services an enterprise needs to hire for can be procured through Rescue and GoTo Resolve.

☆ How to 'layoff-proof' your job, from 6 top recruiters at Netflix, McKinsey, Walmart, and more
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Aj Eckstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

AJ Eckstein hosts a podcast interviewing recruiters from major tech, retail, and finance companies. Recruiters from PwC, Walmart, Lockheed Martin, Netflix, and more share how to safeguard your job. I'm a podcast host and job-search expert who interviews leading recruiters at some of the world's largest companies including Netflix, McKinsey & Company, Accenture, and Walmart. I've interviewed more than 30 recruiters in order to pull back the curtain on the recruitment process and help job seekers. "In a constantly shifting job market, employees shouldn't be stagnant either," he said.

REUTERS/Miguel VidalA CORUNA, Spain/LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - In Spain's A Coruna, two contrasting fashion business models collide - pitching the growing demands for the clothing industry to become more sustainable against the constant need to drive sales. This rainy, windswept, city on the rugged Atlantic coast is the unlikely headquarters of Zara-owner Inditex (ITX.MC) - the world's biggest fast fashion retailer. It also hosts small boutiques offering high quality, durable products that consider themselves an alternative to the fast and affordable fashion propelling Inditex's annual sales of 28 billion euros ($30 billion). "If you release tonnes and tonnes of clothes, textiles, shoes into the market, you will have to collect it," he said. But Circ and its competitors are only capable of producing 1% of the textiles needed to make the 109 million tonnes of clothes per year that the global fashion industry churns out.

☆ Elon Musk calls US media and schools 'racist against whites & Asians'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-26 | by ( Lora Kolodny | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Tesla Chief Executive Office Elon Musk speaks at his company's factory in Fremont, California. In the video, Adams discussed a poll conducted by right-leaning Rasmussen Reports that said 26% of Black respondents disagreed with the statement "It's OK to be white." In his video, Adams called Black people who rejected that phrase as a "hate group." He then added, "For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they're racist against whites & Asians. Musk claimed that the media coverage is "Very disproportionate to promote a false narrative."

☆ 'Business is very good, unfortunately': Arms fair spotlights bonanza year ahead for weapons companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Natasha Turak | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Mohammed Zarandah | Anadolu Agency | Getty ImagesFew things illustrate the health of the arms industry like a massive defense fair. Indeed, many countries are ramping up their defense spending to unprecedented levels. On top of that, U.S. military spending on Ukraine alone hit nearly $50 billion in the last year. China and Saudi Arabia also set respective records for their own governments' defense spending in 2022, despite inflation, giving no indications of slowing down. France's Caesar self-propelled guns, which have been highly effective in battle for the Ukrainian military, normally take two years to make; the government aims to cut that time in half.

☆ A generation of high-profile women tech leaders have stepped aside. What’s next?
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The tech industry has now lost an entire generation of trailblazing women leaders and replaced them mostly with men. And in the wake of the pandemic, women leaders in corporate America more broadly are more likely than ever to quit, according to the most recent Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org. Now that she’s departing, Big Tech is facing a new reckoning over its failure to promote and support women leaders, and what this could mean for the next generation of women in the industry. “Without women in the C-suite who have come before them, it could make this transition period tougher for next generation women leaders,” Kray said. “I think that what she achieved and what she modeled will be something that will live on beyond the fact that now we don’t have a female Big Tech CEO.”

☆ Gary Vaynerchuk compares the rise of AI like ChatGPT to the way the internet revolutionized work: 'AI is coming for our jobs and that's ok'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Jason Lalljee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Gary Vaynerchuk predicts that AI software like ChatGPT will eliminate many jobs. He's optimistic about workers' ability to rally and adapt to AI, or create new roles. That's been true to an extent about previous types of automation, but AI looks likely to impact a broader demographic of workers. Like Vaynerchuk points out, there's some reason to be optimistic long-term about the job shake ups technology can cause. But Vaynerchuk is more convinced that AI represents the status quo for automation.

☆ Walmart execs say own-brand sales are growing as customers cut spending, and suggest that other brands could put their prices down to compete
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

More shoppers are buying private-label brands at Walmart amid economic uncertainty, execs say. CEO Doug McMillon told CNBC that by keeping prices low, Walmart could push other brands to drop their prices too. "But there is definitely some acceleration to private brands in the last 90 days." In response, Walmart is focusing on its value proposition and making sure it has high-quality private brands, he said. McMillon told CNBC that by keeping its prices low, Walmart could push other brands to drop their prices.

☆ Morning Bid: Not if or when but how fast?
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Kai PfaffenbachA look at the day ahead in European and global markets from Anshuman Daga:Is it really good news? Probably yes, probably not. Fed funds futures traders are now pricing for the Fed's benchmark overnight interest rate to reach 5.36% in July and end the year at 5.18%. Asian stock markets floated in a sea of red on Wednesday following an ugly sell-off on Wall Street. Inflation data from Germany and Italy due later on Wednesday will offer clues on price pressures.

☆ Management consulting firm McKinsey & Co plans to cut 2,000 jobs after adding 17,000 over the past 5 years: reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The consulting firm is looking to get rid of jobs that do not deal with clients. Financial Times and Bloomberg reported that over the past five years, McKinsey added 17,000 employees. The source also told the Financial Times that the legal and compliance teams would not be affected. McKinsey & Co., one of the "Big Three" consulting firms in the US, is one of the most sought-after consulting jobs in the country. In 2018, McKinsey told Insider the firm received 800,000 applications, with only 8,000 people receiving offers.

☆ McKinsey plans to cut 2,000 jobs in one of its biggest layoffs, Bloomberg News reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 21 (Reuters) - Consulting giant McKinsey & Co is planning to cut about 2,000 jobs, in one of its biggest round of layoffs, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. McKinsey did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Bloomberg report said the layoffs are a part of Project Magnolia, which the consulting firm hopes will help preserve the compensation pool of its partners. It added that McKinsey is looking to restructure how it organizes its support teams to centralize some of the roles. Reporting by Anirban Chakroborti in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini GanguliOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ McKinsey Intends to Eliminate as Many as 2,000 Jobs
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Kathryn Hardison | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The cuts would be one of the company’s biggest headcount reductions to date. McKinsey & Co. plans to eliminate thousands of positions, adding the consulting giant to a wave of companies that are cutting corporate jobs. The firm, which is known for helping companies streamline their operations, could shed as many as 2,000 jobs in what would be one of its biggest headcount reductions to date, according to a person familiar with the matter.

☆ 'It's a huge concern': Senior-level women are calling it quits after decades climbing the career ladder
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Jennifer Liu | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Some of the world's most powerful women are calling it quits. To give some context, for every woman stepping into a director-level leadership role, two are choosing to leave, says Alexis Krivkovich, McKinsey senior partner and an author of the joint Lean In and McKinsey "Women in the Workplace" report. The pattern has the potential to unwind decades of progress toward gender equity and increased female leadership in the workplace, she tells CNBC Make It. "They're meeting their goals and being successful, and some are choosing to leave before they get burned out," Workman adds. The problem remains that there are too few women in high levels of leadership, Krivkovich says: "Lots of men leave their positions, but we analyze and scrutinize when women leaders do in a different way.

☆ As accomplished, high-profile female leaders step back from their careers, I wonder whether any woman can have it all
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Marguerite Ward | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

I don't fault them; they're women who achieved much and then, it appears, made the best decision for themselves. Women face bias when they're leaders. McKinsey & Company recently said it found that "compared with men, senior women leaders report higher rates of burnout, chronic stress, and exhaustion." A report last year from LeanIn.org and McKinsey said women leaders were leaving their companies at the highest rate ever; the organizations started tracking the data in 2015. "You're not promoting enough women into the leadership ranks, and now you have more women leaving leadership roles," Thomas told CNBC Make It in October.

☆ Embraer's electric aircraft maker Eve 'on track' to start service in 2026
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Gabriel Araujo | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SAO PAULO, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Electric aircraft maker Eve Holding Inc (EVEX.N) is "on track" to meet its goal of starting commercial operations in 2026, an executive said on Friday, and getting its aircraft certificated is the most immediate target. Eve is confident about the "robust project," which is backed by Embraer's expertise, said Mauad, reiterating the goal of starting operations in 2026. BNDES later announced it would grant Eve an additional 490 million reais ($94.47 million). Mauad acknowledged a consolidation process could happen in the sector, but noted Eve was still particularly focused on working through its partnerships. ($1 = 5.1871 reais)Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Anthony Esposito and Susan FentonOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ HBCU students diversify alternative investing with the help of Wall Street’s biggest firms
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Frank Holland | In Frank-Holland | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The AltFinance Fellowship is the brainchild of top alternative investment firms Ares Management, Apollo Global Management and Oaktree Capital Management. Selected students will also receive a scholarship of up to $10,000 if they're sophomores, while juniors and seniors can receive up to $15,000. Partnering schools include Clark Atlanta University, Howard University, Morehouse College and Spelman College. The private equity, private credit and commercial real estate industry has about $10 trillion in assets under management, according to data provider Preqin. "This is not a charitable activity," Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, told CNBC.

☆ VC firm Counteract just reached first close on its $42 million carbon removal fund. We got an exclusive look at the 11-slide LP deck it used to secure cash from The Grantham Foundation.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Tasmin Lockwood | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

VC firm Counteract has reached first close on its inaugural £35 million fund. It plans to back 40 global companies across all elements of carbon removal. London-based firm Counteract, founded in 2021, has just reached first close on its inaugural £35 million, about $41.9 million, fund. Direct air capture is one of the best-known carbon removal technologies thanks to Swiss company Climeworks. Isaacs stressed the importance of exploring all potential technologies as carbon removal evolves alongside policy, making it inherently risky.

Search resuls for: "McKinsey"

25 mentions found