In this week’s recap, Marcello addresses the situation where tech firms are on their way to more massive layoffs and its possible effects on the market; WEF assistants are being questioned for using thousands of private jets to attend the forum while claiming for greener ways of living; and Brazil’s lower than expected coffee harvest might cause an unprecedented coffee shortage across the globe.
According to data compiled by the Layoffs.fyi website over 55,000 global tech-sector employees have already lost their jobs in 2023. The total of global tech layoffs in 2023 has doubled this week. It had recorded just over 25,000 as of Tuesday. The data suggest 2023 is on pace to surpass 2022 for global tech redundancies, with 154 tech firms laying off 55,324 employees in the 1st few weeks of 2023. Last year, 1,024 tech firms laid off 154,336 employees.
Alphabet, which is Google’s parent, saw shares rise +5.72% on Friday at $99.28, after CEO Sundar Pichai announced the company will lay off 12,000 employees noting in a memo that the company hired for a different economic reality than the one we face today. The stock is up +11.89, but down -23.68% year on year, with a market cap of $1.28T.
World market faces coffee shortages for an unprecedented 3rd consecutive year, due to lower-than-expected harvest from top grower Brazil, according to coffee trader Volcafe. Global supply will be behind demand by 3.8M bags in the next season, with robusta beans hitting a record shortfall amid surging demand for the variety used in instant coffee & as a blend in espressos. The shortfall comes after demand in the current season is seen as outstripping supply by 4.5M bags.
The U.S. government has hit its $31.4T borrowing limit, amid a standoff between the Republican-controlled House of Representatives & President Biden’s Democrats on lifting the ceiling, which could lead to a fiscal crisis in a few months. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen informed congressional leaders that her department had begun using extraordinary cash management measures that will stave off default until June 5.
According to data released by the National Statistics Bureau, China’s population began shrinking in 2022, for the 1st time in 6 decades, compounding a worsening demographic crisis for the world’s 2nd largest economy. At 1.41 billion people at the end of last year, 850K fewer than the end of 2021, it marks the 1st drop since 1961, the final year of the Great Famine under former paramount leader Mao Zedong.
Police in Peru fired tear gas near congress Thursday, as protesters massed in downtown Lima to try to topple the weak government of President Dina Boluarte. As the nation’s political crisis enters its 7th week, demonstrators from rural areas traveled 100’s of miles in buses & trucks to voice discontent with the change in government.
The construction of Finland’s 1st industrial-scale green hydrogen production facility began on Friday, its future operator P2X Solutions said. Green hydrogen is produced using renewable energy to split water by electrolysis. It is seen as a major power source that will help Europe end its previous dependency on Russian energy & to reduce carbon emissions. A number of countries & companies have announced investments in green hydrogen production, but few of the plans are in advanced stages.
The number of transistors on a microchip has doubled every year since the 1960s. But will soon plateau because silicon, loses its electrical properties once devices made from this material dip below a certain size. 2D materials two-dimensional sheets of perfect crystals can be as thin as a single atom. At the scale of nanometers, 2D materials can conduct electrons far more efficiently than silicon. The search for next-generation transistor materials therefore has focused on 2D materials, as potential successors to silicon.
the U.S. Federal Reserve is investigating Goldman Sachs Group’s consumer business to determine whether the bank had appropriate safeguards in place; India is now set to export a record 50M eggs this month; Cryptocurrency firm Genesis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will not seek reelection & plans to step down no later than early Feb; The U.S. has now had 2-consecutive monthly declines in retail sales.
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