DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ German cabinet publishes draft legislation on new citizenship rules
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 19 (Reuters) - Germany's interior ministry published draft legislation aimed at making it easier for people to apply for citizenship, as Berlin seeks to boost migration and open up the job market in Europe's biggest economy. The draft proposes a multiple citizenship option and cuts the required residency years before naturalization down to five or three years from the previous eight. German language requirements for citizenship would also be eased for members of the so-called "Gastarbeiter" generation, many of them Turkish, who came to Germany in the 1950s and 60s as migrant workers. At the end of 2021, around 72.4 million people with German citizenship and around 10.7 million with foreign citizenship were living in Germany, of whom around 5.7 million had been in Germany for at least 10 years. "Anyone who does not share these values or even acts contrary to them may not become a German citizen," it says.

☆ Workers want to embrace A.I. — but only 1 in 10 say their jobs involve related skills, Salesforce says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Goh Chiew Tong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Even as companies make hefty investments into AI, most workers have yet to use AI — with "only 1 in 10" globally saying their day-to-day role currently involves AI skills, said Salesforce. Skills leaders wantPeople leaders said "data security skills, ethical AI and automation skills, and programming skills" will become increasingly important in the workplace, according to Salesforce. Only 14% say their role involves other related digital skills such as encryption and cybersecurity, and 13% claim to use coding and app development skills. "But even for this industry, less than a third of employees use AI skills within their role today," Salesforce added. As for Singapore, the industry that ranked highest for the application of AI skills was manufacturing — even though only 21% say they use AI skills within their role.

☆ Angelina Jolie unveils new sustainability-focused fashion venture
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Jack Guy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Hollywood star Angelina Jolie has become the latest celebrity to announce their own fashion brand with the launch of Atelier Jolie. The Oscar-winning actor announced the new fashion venture in a post on Instagram on Wednesday. “I’m starting something new today — a collective where everyone can create,” wrote Jolie. “Atelier Jolie is a place for creative people to collaborate with a skilled and diverse family of expert tailors, pattern makers and artisans from around the world,” she added. From Angelina JolieThe brand also has its own Instagram account, and one post provides further explanation of its purpose.

WASHINGTON, May 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against Amgen Inc (AMGN.O) in its bid to revive patents on its cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha over a legal challenge by French rival Sanofi SA (SASY.PA). Amgen sought to patent a group of antibodies that help reduce so-called "bad" cholesterol. In 2014, Amgen sued Sanofi and Regeneron for patent infringement over their rival drug Praluent, which works by a similar mechanism as Repatha. The justices said that Supreme Court precedent weighed against Amgen. President Joe Biden's administration, arguing in support of Sanofi, told the justices that Amgen had not disclosed the information needed to make to make its patents valid.

☆ Evelyne Axell was a trailblazer of erotic pop art in the 1960s. Then she died
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Jacqui Palumbo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

CNN —Throughout Evelyne Axell’s short but radical career, the Belgian artist revered the female body in psychedelic hues rendered in gleaming enamel. In 1972, only a handful of years into painting, she died in a car crash and faded into relative obscurity. But such sales for Axell are infrequent, according to Sara Friedlander, Christie’s deputy chairman of post-war and contemporary art. Her stylistic approach — a mix of pop art influences and dreamy surrealist settings — is still underrecognized, according to Morris. “She acts as a historical bridge (between surrealism and pop art),” she said.

☆ As Greek elections loom, parties vie for votes of 'lost generation'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Karolina Tagaris | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"What I imagined at 18 is a long way away from what I'm living at 28," the physics student said. "I don't know how we cannot be called a lost generation. "Pension income is a fiscal problem," said Vlassis Missios, an economist at the Greek Centre of Planning and Economic Research. For many young Greeks, finding suitable work is tough. "Even if they can't win the votes of the young people, they don't want to have them as opponents.

☆ What Everyone—Except the U.S.—Has Learned About Immigration
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Tom Fairless | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Migration to affluent countries is at record highs, and some nations short of workers are overcoming political opposition to open their borders even wider, hoping to fill jobs and ease inflation. Government actions to attract foreign nationals for skilled and unskilled jobs have spread from Germany to Japan and include countries with longtime immigration restrictions and some with a populist antipathy to streams of foreign workers.

☆ The World’s Biggest Economies Cautiously Open Their Doors to More Foreign Workers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Tom Fairless | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Putin has banned top officials from resigning as Russian casualties mount in Ukraine, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Kremlin officials have been banned from resigning, a Russian independent media outlet says. Those who do try to leave are threatened with prosecution, according to the report. Those who do try to leave are threatened with prosecution, according to the report. The report said that under the mobilisation decree signed by President Vladimir Putin in September 2022, FSB officials are banned from resigning even after their contract expires. The Kremlin has clamped down on expressing opposition to the Ukraine war, introducing draconian laws outlawing dissent, and jailing scores of critics.

☆ Tableau's chief product officer says he's relied on 3 strategies to help his company thrive through more than a decade of economic ups and downs
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Meira Gebel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Francois Ajenstat, Tableau's chief product officer, has been with the company for over 12 years. When faced with economic uncertainties, Ajenstat leans on the organization's value propositions. "Change management is hard for people, so you always have to connect people to the why," he told Insider. Ajenstat told Insider how fellow tech leaders can stay out of the red, while meeting their goals. Times of economic uncertainty provide leaders with the opportunity to evaluate operations, Ajenstat told Insider.

☆ An Autobiographical Novel Reclaims a Jewish History in Occupied France
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Julie Orringer | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

She asks her mother to tell her all she knows, and her mother, who has by now researched this history extensively, complies. But the few clues available lead only to further questions, and Anne and her mother take the search into their own hands. Each new piece of information they unearth carries with it a freight of pain, a reminder of what was lost. But Anne, having chosen this search, persists: “I’m your daughter, Maman,” she tells her mother. “You’re the one who taught me how to do research, to gather information, to make even the smallest scrap of paper speak.

☆ Opinion: How will Russia’s war end? Zelensky’s representative in the US has an unflinching view
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( David A. Andelman | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, greets Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as he arrives in Washington on December 21, 2022. From the start, our president has been very vocal, saying that we need to liberate Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. We heard it also from our strategic partners here, and even at the recent phone call of our president with President Xi. Andelman: So why did President Zelensky recently have a long conversation with Xi Jinping? Andelman: You know President Zelensky very well personally.

President Xi Jinping recently attended a meeting concerned with population development, it added with the newspaper describing population development as a major event linked to China's "great rejuvenation". Concerned about China's first population drop in six decades last year and its rapid ageing, the government has urgently embarked on measures to lift the country's birth rate including financial incentives and boosting childcare facilities. China will double the number of childcare centres by 2025, state-backed broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday, with the headline "It is no longer difficult to take care of a baby". Gender discrimination and traditional thinking that places the burden of caring for children mostly on women are still widespread throughout the country. Opening up fertility services to unmarried women may help to boost the country's fertility rate, the government's political advisers proposed in March.

☆ Biden administration defends immigrant labor while sending 1,500 troops to the border
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Ethan Dodd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

President Biden is sending 1,500 troops to the southern border. Yet, his secretary of Homeland Security says employers "are desperate for workers." The COVID-era rule expired May 11, so the Biden administration is now sending troops to tamp down on border crossings. Despite taking such measures to police the border, Biden's Department of Homeland Security argued on the day that Title 42 ended that immigrant labor is needed to address America's labor shortage. As a result, native workers who dropped out of high school and typically earn $25,000 annually saw their earnings drop by between $800 and $1,500 each year, he estimated.

☆ Europe takes aim at ChatGPT with what might soon be the West’s first A.I. law. Here's what it means
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The law, known as the European AI Act, is the first law for AI systems in the West. The AI Act categorizes applications of AI into four levels of risk: unacceptable risk, high risk, limited risk and minimal or no risk. But AI technology has been around for years and is integrated into more applications and systems than you might think. "The European Commission's original proposal for the AI Act takes a risk-based approach, regulating specific AI systems that pose a clear risk," de Champris added. "MEPs have now introduced all kinds of amendments that change the very nature of the AI Act, which now assumes that very broad categories of AI are inherently dangerous."

☆ A Kremlin propagandist boasted of Russia's low unemployment rate, not mentioning it's partly because it suffered so many casualties in Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Russian TV anchor Dmitry Kiselyov boasted of the health of Russia's economy. But he made no mention of how Russia's invasion of Ukraine impacted those figures. He omitted how Russia's invasion has decimated the Ukrainian economy, and boasted that in Russia "unemployment is at an historic low." The labor shortage has been exacerbated by the mass mobilisation of working age men to fight in Ukraine, where the Russian military has suffered steep casualty rates, reports say. Around 300,00 men were drafted into the Russian military last September, and a new wave of mobilizations is considered likely amid continued setbacks.

For Love & Money is a biweekly column from Insider answering your relationship and money questions. I keep this a secret because I know everyone will think I'm being unrealistic, but I don't think I need a degree to have financial stability. Am I being unreasonable, or is there a life outside of a college degree? I don't think your plan to take your time choosing a career path is unreasonable. I'm so confident in this assertion that I don't think you should keep your ambivalence about going to college a "big secret."

☆ The Great Resignation is giving way to the 'Big Stay' as job-hopping slows down
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-13 | by ( Madison Hoff | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It may be accurate to say the quitting situation is evolving into the "Big Stay," per ADP's chief economist. "The Big Quit of 2022 could be easing into the Big Stay of 2023," Richardson wrote in her recent commentary. "A year later, all three of these dynamics are abating, and the great resignation itself is looking like a thing of the past." Pollak said that "to the extent that there is a big stay, it is not taking place across the economy." Even if the Great Resignation might not be prevalent in all areas of the economy right now, it could emerge again.

☆ AI offers leisure, if not happiness
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Robert Cyran | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The hours consumed by housework and employed jobs, however, fell by 3.8 hours per day on average, leaving more time for leisure. The loss of manufacturing jobs induced decades of pain on the U.S. Midwest, as it took workers time to find, or retrain for, service jobs. AI might erode the accomplishment people feel from work, or devalue leisure time because people will have too much of it. Past economic shifts have led to increased economic inequality. But all this leisure will leave people with lots of time to argue about what level is optimal.

☆ AI could rebuild the middle class, or in the worst-case scenario 'we use AI to kill each other,' says labor economist
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Grace Mayer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Labor economist David Autor told NPR he believes AI could revitalize the middle class. "The good scenario is one where AI makes elite expertise cheaper and more accessible," Autor told NPR. "First of all, we live in the physical world, which most machines do not," Autor told NPR. "In my mind, I actually think the irony is that the labor market is the least scary part of this at the moment," Autor told NPR. Autor also said, in a worst-case scenario, "we use AI to kill each other" — echoing similar warnings from other researchers.

☆ ‘De-Americanize’: How China Is Remaking Its Chip Business
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Chang Che | John Liu | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last October, construction plans for a hulking semiconductor factory owned by a major state-backed company in central China fell into disarray. The facility belonged to Yangtze Memory Technologies Corporation, or YMTC, a memory chip company that Xi Jinping, China’s president, has extolled as a flag-bearer in China’s race toward self-reliance. Now, the chip maker and its peers are hurriedly overhauling supply chains and rewriting business plans. Nearly seven months later, the U.S. trade barriers have accelerated China’s push for a more independent chip sector. Western technology and money have pulled out, but state funding is flooding in to cultivate homegrown alternatives to produce less advanced but still lucrative semiconductors.

☆ The British Monarchy’s Surprising Benefit
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Amanda Taub | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

And history is full of examples of what happens when it tips too far in one direction or another. For most of history, the imperfect solution was to make power hereditary, because a ruler who expected to pass on the kingdom to their child would want to keep it healthy. But that had some obvious downsides, most glaringly that the job of king often didn’t go to the most qualified or skilled candidate around. Because there are regular elections, everyone expects their team to win some of the time and lose some of the time. But that gives the participants a reason to preserve and play by the rules: If you know you might lose, you want to know that you’ll get another chance at winning after that.

☆ Inflation is cooling — but many items aren’t cheaper. Here’s why
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Elisabeth Buchwald | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Instead, the pace of price increases slowed from a year ago. But they may be suffering from even bigger price increases for margarine, which was up 24%. Poorer households spend a greater portion of their income on unavoidable expenses like food and gas, which makes them more vulnerable to price increases. Not everything is responding well to interest rate hikesThe Federal Reserve spent the past year hiking interest rates in the interest of lowering inflation. When the Fed raises interest rates, it costs more for banks and other lenders to borrow money.

☆ Trump’s CNN town hall is a sign of a broader and more traditional campaign strategy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Kristen Holmes | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign is pursuing a strategy of expanding his appeal by reaching out to audiences beyond friendly conservative media outlets, multiple advisers familiar with the strategy said, including a CNN town hall this week. He’s also scaling back larger rallies, a Trump campaign trademark, for more intimate campaign settings and retail stops that allow the former president to engage with voters. Trump’s team also sees the town hall has an opportunity to draw a contrast with Florida Gov. “Trump is already prepared,” one source told CNN, saying the goal for the town hall is to amplify his core message. He ignored the rulings of dozens of courts.”Ongoing investigationsTrump’s town hall also comes as he faces several legal hurdles.

☆ India builds more hospitals as population surges but doctors in short supply
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Shivam Patel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The problem is a lack of doctors, a shortage that is reaching crucial levels as India becomes the world's most populous nation. Inaugurating the first specialised medical institute in northeast India last month, Modi said his government had sought to increase the number of doctors by setting up more medical colleges. The number of public hospitals, excluding specialised institutes, has risen some 9% in Modi’s time at the top, government data shows. The government says there was a near 80% shortage of surgeons, physicians, gynaecologists and paediatricians at community health centres in rural India as of March 2022. Specialist doctors tend to go overseas or join the private sector in metropolitan and other large cities, said Dr K. Srinath Reddy, at the Public Health Foundation of India non-profit.

Search resuls for: "Skilled"

25 mentions found