Microsoft is cutting 10,000 workers, almost 5% of its workforce, as it joins other tech companies in a scaling back of their pandemic-era expansions. The company said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that the layoffs were a response to "macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities." The company said it will also be making changes to its hardware portfolio and consolidating its leased office locations. The loss of employees is far less than how many Microsoft hired during the COVID-19 pandemic as it responded to a boom in demand for its workplace software and cloud computing services as people worked and studied from home.
When Ukraine was at peace, its energy workers were largely unheralded. War made them heroes. They're proving to be Ukraine's line of defense against repeated Russian missile and drone strikes targeting the energy grid and inflicting the misery of blackouts in winter. Sometimes at the cost of their lives, energy workers are holding battered power plants together with bravery, dedication, ingenuity and dwindling stocks of spare parts. The Associated Press got rare access to a plant that has been repeatedly struck and extensively damaged. Over decades of caring for the plant, its workers have come to love and cherish it like a child. Seeing it slowly but systematically wounded by repeated Russian bombardments is painful for them.
America's employers added a solid 223,000 jobs in December, evidence that the economy remains healthy even as the Federal Reserve is rapidly raising interest rates to try to slow economic growth and the pace of hiring. With companies continuing to add jobs across the economy, the unemployment rate fell from 3.6% to 3.5%, matching a 53-year low. All told, the December jobs report suggested that the labor market may be cooling in a way that could aid the Fed's fight against high inflation. Last month's gain was the smallest in two years, and it extended a hiring slowdown for most of 2022.
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writers
Business software maker Salesforce is laying off about 8,000 employees, or 10% of its workforce, as major technology companies continue to prune payrolls that they rapidly expanded during a two-year boom spurred by pandemic lockdown. The cuts announced Wednesday are by far the largest in the 23-year history of a San Francisco company founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, who pioneered the method of leasing software services to internet-connected devices — a concept now known as "cloud computing." Benioff blamed himself for the layoffs while lamenting a hiring spree he undertook as Salesforce's revenue accelerated while the pandemic forced employers to allow millions of people to work remotely.
Californians on private insurance plans will pay less for abortions in 2023. It's one of hundreds of new laws taking effect in the new year. The law bans insurance companies from charging things like deductibles or co-pays for abortions. Also in 2023, some workers will get raises as the state's minimum wage jumps to $15.50 per hour. Police won't be able to ticket people for jaywalking in some circumstances. Developers will be able to convert shuttered retail stores into affordable housing. And the state will recognize three new holidays with Juneteenth, the Lunar New Year and Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
Victoria Solomon has been woken up by police, told to move off public sidewalks and had her belongings trashed. She's one of the estimated 7,800 people living without a home in San Francisco. The city has become a symbol of California's inability to counter rising homelessness. City attorneys deny that city workers illegally force people to move or throw out personal items. But a judge has temporarily halted the city from clearing homelessness encampments. It's a move that may offer some temporary relief for people like Solomon. But frustrations among homeless residents, city dwellers and business owners alike continue to mount in the politically liberal city.
