Decades after automation began taking and transforming manufacturing jobs, artificial intelligence is coming for the higher-ups in the corporate office. The list of white-collar layoffs is growing almost daily and include jobs cuts at Google, Duolingo and UPS in recent weeks. Since last May, companies have attributed more than 4,600 job cuts to AI, particularly in media and tech.
China’s baby bust is happening faster than many expected, raising fears of a demographic collapse. And coping with the fallout may now be complicated by miscalculations made more than 40 years ago. The rapid shift under way today wasn’t projected by the architects of China’s one-child policy—one of the biggest social experiments in history. Births in China fell by more than 500,000 last year, according to recent government data, accelerating a population drop that started in 2022. China might have just 525 million people by the end of the century, according to the latest data.
US Inflation at 3.1% Reflects Stubborn Pricing Pressure. Economists had predicted that price increases would fall to 2.9%. So far the S&P 500 is down 1.4% on the news.
China has come to dominate every step of the long, complex manufacturing process for solar panels. Part of the reason for that dominance, built over two decades, is that the cost of everything from electricity to labor is much cheaper there than in places such as the U.S. or Europe. The primary building block for some 97% of the world’s solar panels is high-purity silicon, or polysilicon.
The Australian government readied a bill that will give employees the right to ignore calls and texts from their bosses outside working hours, with fines for employers who break the rules.
The market value of China’s and Hong Kong’s equities is down by nearly $7trn since its peak in 2021—a fall of around 35%, even as that of America’s stocks has risen by 14%, and India’s by 60%.
A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon we're talking real money
The U.S. is expected to pay an additional $1.1 trillion in interest over the coming decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Interest costs are on pace to surpass defense this year as one of the largest government expenses in the budget. Only Social Security and Medicare are forecast to be bigger burdens in the coming years.
EV Revolution Gets A Reality Check. Buyers don’t prove as eager as makers.
Economies in the U.K. and Japan shrank at the end of last year, underlining the widening gulf between robust growth in the U.S. and more anemic conditions in the rest of the world. The decline in activity in Japan came as a surprise to economists and means that it has slipped in the global rankings of the world’s largest economies behind Germany and into fourth place.
34 years. The amount of time that has passed since Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average last closed at a record on Dec. 29, 1989. Now, the Nikkei is finally poised to exceed that mark: It came within 100 points of the all-time high on several occasions during Friday’s trading.
