Uber’s revenue decline in the second quarter was the steepest since it went public in May 2019.
Uber said on Thursday that its revenue in the second quarter dropped 29 percent to $2.2 billion from a year ago and that its net loss narrowed to $1.8 billion, as the ride-hailing giant deals with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The revenue decline was the steepest since Uber went public in May 2019, though total revenue was better than what Wall Street analysts had projected. Uber’s losses improved from $5.2 billion a year ago when it had heavy stock-based compensation costs after its initial public offering.
Rosendo Nevarez makes the rounds at John Hine Mazda in Mission Valley on May 26, cleaning surfaces to maintain hygiene standards during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The numbers are in and the economic consequences wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic landed a body blow to new car sales in California, with dealers reporting a drop of 48.9 percent in the second quarter of this year compared to the same three-month period of 2019. Year-to-date vehicle sales are off 26.9 percent.
The statistics reflect the full effect of safety and social distancing protocols that kicked in by mid-March and dramatically curtailed or even temporarily shuttered some showrooms across the state.
“Obviously, with the fuller impact of the pandemic, it was very clear sales were going to drop at the end of the first quarter, beginning of the second quarter,” said Brian Maas, president of the California New Car Dealers Association. “The good news is they didn’t drop nearly as far as we initially feared. And while a nearly 27 percent drop is not ideal, it’s a lot better than it could have been.”
Dealerships have reported signs the market is regaining some footing as the economy tries to crawl back to some sense of normalcy. Economists with the new car dealers association predict new vehicle registrations in California will finish the year 22 percent lower than in 2019, falling from 2.09 million units to 1.63 million. They project the number to rise to 1.81 million in 2021.
For organizations that understand the vulnerabilities in industrial supply chains, there is an opportunity to prepare for future shocks and build resilience without hurting efficiency.
In recent months, structural supply-chain fragility has been catapulted to the top of the news cycle as the ongoing repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic echo around the world. Government-imposed orders to stay at home, international and domestic travel restrictions, and the need for physical distancing have stretched supply chains and laid bare the key bottlenecks in products’ value chains. Shortages have occurred in areas ranging from basic grocery items to electronic components.
The current pandemic is the type of event that is only likely to occur once in a lifetime. In recent years, however, supply-chain risk management has become more of a pressing issue for CEOs across industries. Vulnerabilities have been exposed by trade tensions, natural disasters, and other geo-economic disruptions.
The complexity of global industrial supply chains exponentially increases their risk. On average, an auto manufacturer has around 250 tier-one suppliers, but the number proliferates to 18,000 across the full value chain. Aerospace manufacturers have an average of 200 tier-one suppliers and 12,000 across all tiers. Finally, technology companies have an average of 125 suppliers in their tier-one group and more than 7,000 across all tiers.
Companies that cannot successfully manage those complex and, at times, opaque supply chains are at high risk, especially if they cannot mitigate the risk of increasing disruptions. Even a short disruption of 30 days or fewer can put 3 to 5 percent of EBITDA margin at stake. Recent research from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) has found that as much as 45 percent of one year’s EBITDA1 can be lost each decade because of disruptions.
A reversible middle seat means airlines can maintain their passenger capacity. Avio Interiors
The coronavirus has caused a significant drop in air travel.
Despite masks being mandatory on most major airlines, and sanitation and hygiene practices being stepped up, designers have come up with their own ways to ensure safer air travel.
One 3D-printed product from design firm Teague would attach to the vents above seats to push passengers’ breath down, described on its company’s website as “an invisible germ isolation unit.”
Another design firm, Haeco, sees a future in which passengers share the airplane cabin with cargo, allowing for more space between people.
Challenging economic circumstances should not dash your hopes to landing a job. Stick to these tips to catch a hirer’s eye during widespread uncertainty.
Unemployment is at an all-time high and right now, it’s harder to get hired than years and decades past. But all hope is not lost. There are ways to get noticed and separate yourself, and to get the job, even when job openings are scarce.
First, consider these encouraging statistics: According to a recent study by SHRM (the Society for Human resource Management), among 2,278 members, 17% of employers were expanding their businesses and 13% were hiring. In addition, according to its annual global CEO survey, PwC found 74% of CEOs are concerned about the availability of skills in their respective workforces.
The bottom line: Companies need great employees with strong skills to grow their businesses. Particularly those who are unafraid to take an unconventional and bold approach.
So how can you get hired when it seems no one is hiring? Establishing a strong start to your process is key, along with finding the best ways to leverage your network, your creativity, and your distinctive skill sets.
Here are six ways to get hired during an economic downturn.
Three predictions for what the future might look like
In march, tens of millions of American workers—mostly in white-collar industries such as tech, finance, and media—were thrust into a sudden, chaotic experiment in working from home. Four months later, the experiment isn’t close to ending. For many, the test run is looking more like the long run.
Google announced in July that its roughly 200,000 employees will continue to work from home until at least next summer. Mark Zuckerberg has said he expects half of Facebook’s workforce to be remote within the decade. Twitter has told staff they can stay home permanently.
With corporate giants welcoming far-flung workforces, real-estate markets in the superstar cities that combine high-paid work and high-cost housing are in turmoil. In the San Francisco Bay Area, rents are tumbling. In New York City, offices are still empty; so many well-heeled families with second homes have abandoned Manhattan that it’s causing headaches for the census.
You live where you work is a truism as ancient as grain farming; which means it’s as ancient as the city itself. But the internet specializes in disentangling the bundles of previous centuries, whether it’s cable TV, the local newspaper, or the department store. Now, with the pandemic shuttering the face-to-face economy, it seems poised to weaken the spatial relationship between work and home.
When the pandemic is over, one in six workers is projected to continue working from home or co-working at least two days a week, according to a recent survey by economists at Harvard Business School. Another survey of hiring managers by the global freelancing platform Upwork found that one-fifth of the workforce could be entirely remote after the pandemic.
A supercomputer-powered genetic study of COVID-19 patients has spawned a possible breakthrough into how the novel coronavirus causes disease—and points toward new potential therapies to treat its worst symptoms.
The genetic data mining research uncovered a common pattern of gene activity in the lungs of symptomatic COVID-19 patients, which when compared to gene activity in healthy control populations revealed a mechanism that appears to be a key weapon in the coronavirus’s arsenal.
The good news is there are already drugs—a few of which are already FDA-approved—aimed at some of these very same pathologies.
“We think we have a core mechanism that explains a lot of the symptoms where the virus ends up residing,” said Daniel Jacobson, chief scientist for computational systems biology at Oak Ridge National Labs in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Since the pandemic began, the fashion industry has taken a hit. Retail giants have filed for bankruptcy, independent brands have closed, and brick-and-mortar stores, if they haven’t shut their doors, are still financially recovering from the months they were forced to stay closed during the lockdown. One of the few areas that has seen growth during this time, though, is the resale industry.
Online consignment platforms and secondhand retailers had already been seeing promising signs in the last few years. According to thredUP’s 2020 Resale Report, resale grew 25 times faster than retail in 2019, with 62M women buying secondhand products in 2019, compared to 56M in 2018 and 44M in 2017. The pandemic did not slow this growth.
Big brands from a wide swath of industries are looking to fill long-term posts, according to Flexjobs.com.
Unemployment remains high as Americans emerge from the pandemic-driven lockdown, but 18 well-known companies that made the switch to telecommuting are currently hiring for long-term remote work, according to Flexjobs.com.
This is welcome news: Working remotely is not only safer from COVID-19, it’s very popular, especially among those who had the opportunity to work from home (WFH), after fears of the spread of COVID-19 shifted the way many Americans work.
Some companies that have made the complete shift to remote work are hiring now, and it means a job with a recognizable company name. And there’s a wide swath of industries, too, including big tech, credit card or affiliated companies, real estate, social media, sales, higher education, research and advisory, social and viewing management, software, family history research, and an online retailer, Flexjobs.com said.
The coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on the global jobs market, according to data compiled by LinkedIn, with the economic crisis forcing businesses to cut jobs and slow hiring in most areas.
A report from the United Nations’ International Labour Organization has estimated that the number of working hours lost in the second quarter of 2020 is expected to be the equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs.
It means seeking out positions that are in-demand from employers and re-training accordingly are among some of the potential solutions to gaining an edge in this competitive jobs climate.
In the U.K., for example, LinkedIn said that the jobs market is currently three times more competitive when compared to the same period last year.
Josh Graff, U.K. country manager at LinkedIn, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that Britain is facing the “toughest labor market in a generation” as a result of the economic fallout from Covid-19.
Marlboro maker Altria says stimulus checks and e-cigarette restrictions are driving sales of traditional cigarettes
Americans are smoking more during the coronavirus pandemic because they are spending less on travel and entertainment and have more opportunities to light up. They are also switching back to traditional cigarettes from vaping devices in the wake of federal restrictions on e-cigarette flavors.
Executives at Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc. pointed to the trends Tuesday and said they have been significant enough to slow the yearslong decline in U.S. cigarette sales. Altria now expects U.S. cigarette unit sales to fall by 2% to 3.5% this year compared with its previous projection of a 4%-to-6% decline.
Pandemic lockdowns have meant fewer social outings and more time to smoke at home, Altria Chief Executive Billy Gifford said. Though unemployment rates are high, stimulus checks and increased unemployment benefits have helped ease the financial hardship for low- and middle-income cigarette smokers, he added. Adult cigarette smokers are making fewer trips to the store, but they are stocking up on packs when they do go.
“Fewer social engagements allow for more tobacco-use occasions,” Mr. Gifford told analysts on an earnings call Tuesday. The company’s Marlboro brand accounts for 43% of all cigarettes sold in the U.S.
Dancer Olivia entertains patrons during the Drive-thru at The Lucky Devil in Portland, Oregon.
Some strip clubs have found a creative way to keep workers employed through the pandemic.
It was bound to happen. Despite the pandemic, strip clubs have found a way to bring customers back in, while keeping bartenders, servers, and entertainers employed.
Enter the drive-through strip club, where you can order a burger and beer from your car, while performers dance with masks on behind a barricade. There are now at least a couple of these joints in the U.S., including Lucky Devil Lounge in Portland, Oregon, and Vivid Gentleman’s Club, in Houston.
Strip club employees are particularly vulnerable in the midst of the pandemic-induced recession. As The Cut reported, dancers at these venues are effectively gig workers. They don’t earn an hourly wage, nor do they have benefits or paid time off. They rely entirely on tips. And these earnings dried up when strip clubs had to close during state-mandated lockdowns.
