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The World
Retail workers, drained from the pandemic and empowered by a strengthening job market, are leaving jobs like never before. Americans are ditching their jobs by the millions, and retail is leading the way with the largest increase in resignations of any sector. Some 649,000 retail workers put in their notice in April, the industry’s largest one-month exodus since the Labor Department began tracking such data more than 20 years ago. Some are finding less stressful positions at insurance agencies, marijuana dispensaries, banks and local governments, where their customer service skills are rewarded with higher wages and better benefits. Others are going back to school to learn new trades, or waiting until they are able to secure reliable child care. (Washington Post)
Younger Americans are less likely to be vaccinated than their elders, and factors like income and education may affect vaccine hesitancy, according to two new studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By May 22, 57% of adults had received at least one vaccine dose, the authors of one of the new papers found, but the rate varied considerably by age: Among those who were 65 or older, 80% had been at least partially vaccinated, compared with 38% of those between 18 and 29. In a second study, 24.9% of 18- to 39-year-olds surveyed said that they would probably or definitely not get vaccinated. Those who were young, Black, low-income, lacked health insurance, lived outside of metropolitan areas or had lower levels of education were less likely to report being vaccinated or to say that they definitely planned to be vaccinated. (New York Times, CDC Paper, CDC Paper-2)
Researchers found that Black patients admitted with COVID-19 were 11% more likely to die than their White counterparts after adjusting for patient and clinical characteristics. Black patients were more likely to die largely because of where they received care — at hospitals that performed worse than those that treated White patients, according to the study that analyzed more than 44,000 Medicare Advantage admissions to more than 1,180 hospitals across 41 states. (Healthcare Dive)
Americans lost more years of life to COVID-19 in 2020 than to all accidents combined in a typical year: Researchers can estimate the number of “life years” lost due to a cause of death – a statistic that takes life expectancy into account. Examining this statistic underscores the extent to which Covid cut Americans’ lives short as the nation’s death toll from the disease reaches 600,000. In 2020, the average number of life years lost per U.S. coronavirus death was 14. This is comparable to the average number of years lost per heart disease death in the U.S. in 2019 (13 years) and somewhat lower than the average number of years lost per cancer or diabetes death that year (17 years). (Pew Research Center)
South America is now a Covid-19 hot spot, with eight times the world’s death rate. South America, which has just 5% of the world’s population, now accounts for a quarter of the global death toll. Driving the surge are more infectious variants, low vaccination rates, weak healthcare systems and, in some cases, governments that gave up on controlling the virus. (Wall Street Journal)
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the Euro 2020 soccer final should be moved from Wembley Stadium in London to Rome. The UK has seen a rise in coronavirus cases due to the spread of the delta variant, first identified in India. "I advocate that the final should not take place in a country in which the risk of infection is very big," Draghi told reporters. (Deutsche Welle)
Medicaid enrollment rose sharply during the pandemic, with nearly 10 million Americans joining the public health coverage program for the poor through January. 80 million people — more than ever before in the program’s history — now carry Medicaid coverage. The new figures demonstrate the program’s increasingly important role not just as a safety net, but as a pillar of American health coverage, with fully a quarter of the population covered under it. (New York Times)
After ACA’s third Supreme Court challenge, voters remain divided on the 2010 law: 54% of voters approve of ACA, but party sentiment is stark: 85% of Democrats back the law; 74% of GOP disapprove. (Morning Consult)
An unprecedented study has now confirmed that we probably cannot slow the rate at which we get older because of biological constraints. The study, by an international collaboration of scientists from 14 countries and including experts from the University of Oxford, set out to test the “invariant rate of aging” hypothesis, which says that a species has a relatively fixed rate of aging from adulthood. “Our findings support the theory that, rather than slowing down death, more people are living much longer due to a reduction in mortality at younger ages,” said José Manuel Aburto from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, who analyzed age-specific birth and death data spanning centuries and continents. (The Guardian)
The latest obstacle hitting global shipping is likely to jolt trade flows for several more weeks and could delay shipments heading into the year-end holiday shopping season. Shipping executives say around 50 container ships remain backed up around the Yantian port in Southern China and that some 350,000 loaded containers are stacked up on docks as the major gateway for China goods heading to Western nations struggles to recover from a Covid-19 outbreak that disrupted operations. (Wall Street Journal)
Swimming in cash from an unexpected budget surplus and federal stimulus money, California is planning rent forgiveness on a scale never seen before in the U.S. A $5.2 billion program in final negotiations at the State Legislature would pay 100% of unpaid rent that lower-income Californians incurred during the pandemic and would be financed entirely by federal money. The state is also proposing to set aside $2 billion to pay for unpaid water and electricity bills. (New York Times)
Economy
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said that job growth should pick up in coming months and temporary inflation pressures should ease as the economy continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic. “The economy has shown sustained improvement,” Mr. Powell said in testimony prepared for delivery today on Capitol Hill. (Wall Street Journal)
U.S. stocks bounced back and government bonds softened, reversing some of the tumultuous moves last week that followed a Federal Reserve meeting where officials took a more hawkish tone on interest rates and inflation. The S&P 500 closed higher by 1.4%, a resurgence that came after it posted its worst performance in almost four months last week. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond, which also dropped sharply last week, rose 0.05 percentage points to 1.49%. (Financial Times)
John Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the U.S. economy was not yet ready for the central bank to start pulling back its hefty monetary support, even though the outlook has become rosier. (Financial Times)
Amazon systematically attempts to channel 6% of its office employees out of the company each year, using processes embedded in proprietary software to help meet a target for turnover among low-ranked office workers, a metric Amazon calls “unregretted attrition,” according to internal company documents seen by The Seattle Times. The documents underscore the extent to which Amazon’s processes closely resemble the controversial management practice of stack ranking —in which employees are graded by comparison with each other rather than against a job description or performance goals — despite Amazon’s insistence that it does not engage in stack ranking. The documents also highlight how much of Amazon’s human resources processes are reliant on apps and algorithms, even among the company’s office workforce. (Seattle Times)
Exxon prepares to cull U.S. white-collar ranks by up to 10%: Using its performance-evaluation system will suss out low performers. (Bloomberg)
Scientists say the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 45% by 2030 to have any hope of meeting Paris Agreement targets for the middle of the century and averting catastrophic warming. Yet 41 of the world's 250 biggest corporate emitters - or 16% - are only just starting to assess their emissions, with no reduction targets set for any year. And while many of the 250 companies have set targets for 2050, only 27 - or 11% - have laid out shorter-term plans to make major cuts by 2030, according to the data, compiled from corporate reports and other public disclosures. (Reuters)
Households that weathered the pandemic-related economic crisis without financial distress are snapping up the limited supply of homes for sale, pushing up prices and further excluding less affluent buyers from homeownership. At the same time, millions who lost income are behind on housing payments and on the brink of eviction or foreclosure. (Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies)
Half of existing-home buyers in April who used mortgages put at least 20% down, according to a National Association of Realtors survey. In 10 years of record-keeping, that percentage has hit or exceeded 50% three times, and all have been since last fall. A quarter of existing-home buyers in April paid cash, the highest level since 2017, NAR said. (Wall Street Journal)
Technology
Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Partners and Netflix have forged a partnership, one that will see the company produce multiple new feature films for the streaming service every year. The pact gives Netflix access to one of the most legendary directors in the movie business at a time when competition in the streaming space is growing fiercer with the launch of Disney Plus, HBO Max and other challengers. The move is surprising and a sign of the major changes taking place in Hollywood, in part because Spielberg has previously been seen as something of a Netflix skeptic. (Variety)
Google is closing its dedicated start-up space in London known as Campus, claiming that it can provide support for start-ups across the country without a physical space. (CNBC)
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s head of digital and competition policy, has rejected the idea that its forthcoming Digital Markets Act (DMA) will only target American tech companies. She spoke after the White House warned Brussels that the tone around its flagship new tech policy sent a negative message and suggested that the EU “is not interested in engaging with the United States in good faith” on the challenges posed by large tech platforms. (Financial Times)
Many information-technology workers in the U.S. are on the hunt for new jobs, seeking a wider array of remote work options, better chances for promotions and bigger paychecks, as Covid-19 restrictions ease and the economy rebounds. That has many employers redoubling efforts to recruit and retain skilled IT workers, who were already in short supply before the coronavirus pandemic. (Wall Street Journal)
Amazon placed an order for 1,000 autonomous driving systems from self-driving truck technology startup Plus and has acquired the option to buy a stake of as much as 20%, Plus said in a regulatory filing. Amazon has the right to buy preferred shares of Plus via a warrant at a price of $0.46647 per share; that amounts to a roughly 20% stake based on Plus’s shares outstanding before its planned merger with special purpose acquisition company Hennessy Capital Investment Corp. V. (Bloomberg)
Smart Links
Microsoft plans massive China expansion in Asia-wide cloud push. (Bloomberg)
HSBC offers sub-1% mortgage as interest rate war intensifies. (The Guardian)
Goldman Sachs welcomes bankers back to the office with live music, food trucks. (New York Post)
The case for new social media business models. (MIT Sloan Management School)
‘A Mass Exodus’: At universities, inflexible remote-work policies could bring major staff turnover. (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Scientists might have spotted tectonic activity inside Venus. (MIT Technology Review)
It appears that Ring is making a dashcam. (The Tapedrive)
Smart Links
Today, 10 am: Exploring Impactful Leadership. As business leaders redefine the purpose of a corporation to promote an economy that serves all, they are challenged to maximize inclusivity, social impact, and corporate sustainability while satisfying the demands of balance sheets and stakeholders. (MIT)