World

The survey comes at a remarkable time given the experience of the past year and a half, said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. "There have been a lot of epiphanies and reckonings that have occurred during the time with respect with how we're prioritizing ultimately our values, and of course how work fits into that." Some 55% of people in the workforce, meaning that they're currently working or actively looking for employment, said they are likely to look for a new job in the next 12 months, according to Bankrate's August jobseeker survey, published Monday . YouGov Plc conducted the survey of 2,452 adults for Bankrate from July 28 to July 30. The data confirms trends seen in the labor market recently. While millions remain unemployed, certain industries are struggling to ...

BEIJING :Earnings at China's industrial firms in July slowed for the fifth straight month, adding to growing evidence of a loss of momentum in the world's second-biggest economy and bolstering the case for maintaining policy support https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-policy-idUSKBN2F013X for a while longer. Elevated raw material prices and supply chain constraints from extreme weather as well as sporadic coronavirus cases dragged on earnings in the manufacturing sector, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday. Industrial firms' profits in July increased 16.4per cent on an annual basis - the slowest clip this year - to 703.67 billion yuan (US$108.51 billion), the NBS said. That compared to a 20per cent gain in June. China's economy has staged an i...

LONDON/TOKYO : Global factory activity lost momentum in August as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic-disrupted supply chains, raising concerns faltering manufacturing would add to economic woes caused by slumping consumption, surveys showed on Wednesday. Many firms reported logistical troubles, product shortages and a labour crunch which have made it a sellers' market of the goods factories need, driving up prices. While factory activity remained strong in the euro zone, IHS Markit's final manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 61.4 in August from July's 62.8, below an initial 61.5 "flash" estimate. "Despite the strong PMI figures, we think that lingering supply-side issues and related producer price pressures might take longer to resolve than previously expected, increasi...

BEIJING : China's SenseTime, which sells augmented reality technology to other companies, has seen global daily active users of that tech grow to 100 million from its launch of the business in 2016, a company executive said. Augmented reality (AR) features allow users to apply filters or effects such as cat ears or photos or even livestreamed video to visual content. Apps that employ SenseTime's AR tech include Twitter-like Weibo, video site Bilibili and social e-commerce app Xiaohongshu. The artificial intelligence company is best known for its facial recognition technology and has been on a Washington trade blacklist since 2019. It is aiming to raise as much as US$2 billion in a Hong Kong IPO https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinese-ai-startup-sensetime-file-hong-kong-ipo-by-end-augu...

BEIJING: China's exports unexpectedly grew at a faster pace in August thanks to solid global demand, helping take some of the pressure off the world's second-biggest economy as it navigates its way through headwinds from several fronts. China staged an impressive recovery from a coronavirus-battered slump, but economic momentum has weakened recently due to the Delta variant-driven COVID-19 outbreaks, high raw material prices, slowing exports, tighter measures to tame hot property prices and a campaign to reduce carbon emissions. Shipments from the world's biggest exporter in August rose at a faster-than-expected rate of 25.6 per cent from a year earlier, from a 19.3 per cent gain in July, pointing to some resilience in China's industrial sector. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast g...

U.S. stock futures rose slightly Monday after the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs Friday. The S&P 500 ended above 4,500 for the first time ever. The Dow 's rally brought it to within 0.5% of its record close on Aug. 16. Stocks rallied Friday after Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled that central bankers are in no rush to raise interest rates. He said decision-making on rate hikes is on a different track than tapering bond purchases, which he acknowledged could start this year. (CNBC) With two days left in August , the Dow was up nearly 1.5%, the S&P 500 was 2.6% higher and the Nasdaq was up 3.1%. Whether Wall Street's gains can continue may depend on the government's latest monthly employment report, which is set for release on Friday. While saying the Fed has seen sufficient pro...

WASHINGTON : US job growth likely remained robust in July amid shifts in seasonal employment at schools caused by the pandemic, which could mask some softening in underlying labour market conditions as the boost from fiscal stimulus and the economy's reopening fades. The Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday (Aug 6) could show nonfarm payrolls surging by at least 1 million last month because of the so-called seasonal adjustment factors, which are also seen inflating employment at auto assembly plants and in the leisure and hospitality sector. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, education employment normally declined by about 1 million jobs in July as schools closed, while temporary plant shutdowns for summer retooling weighed on automobile payrolls. But this year man...

A 22-year-old Vietnamese woman who came to Japan with dreams of becoming an interpreter was sentenced in January to a prison term of a year and six months, suspended for three years. The Nagoya District Court handed down the ruling on the woman who obtained a forged residence card to get a job and earn a living. The case reveals the difficulties faced by some foreign nationals in Japan who lost their jobs amid the COVID-19 pandemic but were unable to return to their home country. “I’m worried. I feel lonesome. I just want to go back to Vietnam soon,” the woman said in broken Japanese when the writer visited her prior to the ruling. According to prosecutors’ statements and questioning of the defendant during the trial, she came to Japan in June 2017 as a student, with the corresponding ...

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden hailed the Senate passage on Tuesday (Aug 10) of a "historic" US$1.2 trillion infrastructure package, celebrating a major bipartisan win on a plan he vowed would "transform America". By funding work on roads, bridges and ports, as well as clean water and high-speech internet, Biden said the Bill - which still needs House approval - would create thousands of high-paying jobs for people without college degrees. "This historic investment infrastructure is what I believe you, the American people, want," Biden said in a White House address. "This Bill shows that we can work together," he said. Some seven weeks after the Democratic leader stood with senators from both parties hailing a preliminary agreement, the Bill received rare bipartisan support in Wash...

If that fails, social media companies like Facebook have hate speech policies that could help. Facebook defines attacks as violent or dehumanising speech, harmful stereotypes, statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt, disgust or dismissal, cursing, and calls for exclusion or segregation, Ms Kate Blashki from Facebook’s Content Policy team told CNA. Ms Blashki added that Facebook prohibits attacks on people based on their “protected characteristics”. This is defined as their race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity and serious disease. For content that doesn’t violate hate speech policies, she noted that they may violate other community standards, like those related to bullying and harassment. “However,...