Category: Business

Amazon, Target and other retailers are ramping up hiring for the holiday shopping season

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FILE – Amazon employees load packages on carts before being put on to trucks for distribution to customers for Amazon’s annual Prime Day event at an Amazon’s DAX7 delivery station on July 16, 2024, in South Gate, Calif. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

By HALELUYA HADERO AP Business Writer

Retailers are ramping up hiring for the holiday season, but fewer seasonal employees are expected to be taken on this year to help customers in stores and assemble online orders in warehouses.

E-commerce giant Amazon said Thursday it will hire 250,000 full, part-time and seasonal workers for the crucial shopping period, rounding out a series of announcements made in recent weeks by the country’s top retailers.

Amazon is hiring the same number of employees it did last year, similar to Bath & Body Works and Target, which said in September it planned to bring in roughly 100,000 seasonal employees and offer current employees the option to work extra hours during the holiday shopping period. Continue reading

As theaters struggle, many independent cinemas in Los Angeles are finding their audience

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Cinephile Miles Villalon, left, stands underneath the marquee of the New Beverly Cinema revival theater, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

By KRYSTA FAURIA Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — On a hot summer evening, Miles Villalon lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema, hours before showtime.

The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed double feature of 1976’s “All the President’s Men” and 1999’s “Dick.” But Villalon braved Los Angeles’ infamous rush-hour traffic to snag front-row seats at Quentin Tarantino’s historic theater.

This level of dedication is routine for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively in independently owned theaters in and around Los Angeles.

“I always say it feels like church,” he said. “When I go to AMC, I just sit there. And I can’t really experience that communal thing that we have here, where we’re all just worshipping at the altar of celluloid.” Continue reading

Sustainable investing advocate says ‘anti-woke’ backlash in US won’t stop the movement

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(AP Illustration/Jenni Sohn)

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Maria Lettini already knew of the backlash against ESG investing when she took over as chief executive of US SIF last year.

US SIF is an advocacy group that supports sustainable investing, which encourages investors to consider a wider set of risks including the environment, social issues and corporate governance in hopes of improving their returns.

But returning to the U.S. after several years working in the U.K., Letting wasn’t prepared for how widespread the backlash against ESG was. Lettini spoke with The Associated Press about that and sustainable investing generally. The conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Continue reading

AI may not steal many jobs after all. It may just make workers more efficient

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Customer Experience Representatives Stanley Solis, center, and other representatives take calls at an Alorica center, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in San Antonio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Imagine a customer-service center that speaks your language, no matter what it is.

Alorica, a company in Irvine, California, that runs customer-service centers around the world, has introduced an artificial intelligence translation tool that lets its representatives talk with customers who speak 200 different languages and 75 dialects.

So an Alorica representative who speaks, say, only Spanish can field a complaint about a balky printer or an incorrect bank statement from a Cantonese speaker in Hong Kong. Alorica wouldn’t need to hire a rep who speaks Cantonese.

Such is the power of AI. And, potentially, the threat: Perhaps companies won’t need as many employees — and will slash some jobs — if chatbots can handle the workload instead. But the thing is, Alorica isn’t cutting jobs. It’s still hiring aggressively. Continue reading

Better Cities For Startups Than Silicon Valley

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By Franklin Schneider | Wealth of Geeks undefined

Startups face difficult odds. About one-fifth of them fail in the first year, and nearly half don’t last five years.

Founders who start their business in a city with sky-high costs and limited access to talent may see their entrepreneurial dreams go under long before discovering if their business idea is even viable.

Historically, the West Coast has been a hub for startups and emerging tech companies, but as costs skyrocket, many young business owners moved across the country to more affordable cities on the East Coast, according to a new study from Clever Real Estate.

The top 10 startup cities in 2024 are:

  • Atlanta,Georgia
  • Miami, Florida
  • Orlando, Florida
  • Tampa, Florida
  • Austin, Texas
  • San Francisco, California
  • Washington, D.C.
  • Jacksonville, Florida
  • Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Dallas, Texas

Continue reading

Google agreed to pay millions for California news. Journalists call it a bad deal

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FILE – A Google sign hangs over an entrance to the company’s new building, Sept. 6, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

By TRÂN NGUYỄN Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Google will soon give California millions of dollars to help pay for local journalism jobs in a first-in-the-nation deal, but journalists and other media industry experts are calling it a disappointing agreement that mostly benefits the tech giant.

The agreement, which was hashed out behind closed doors and announced this week, will direct tens of millions of public and private dollars to keep local news organizations afloat. Critics say it’s a textbook political maneuver by tech giants to avoid a fee under what could have been groundbreaking legislation. California lawmakers agreed to kill a bill requiring tech to support news outlets they profit from in exchange for Google’s financial commitment. Continue reading

Too many people, not enough management: A look at the chaos of ‘overtourism’ in the summer of 2024

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Tuk-tuks drop off and pick up tourists at the gate of the 19th century Pena Palace in Sintra, Portugal, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)

By LAURIE KELLMAN Associated Press

SINTRA, Portugal (AP) — The doorbell to Martinho de Almada Pimentel’s house is hard to find, and he likes it that way. It’s a long rope that, when pulled, rings a literal bell on the roof that lets him know someone is outside the mountainside mansion that his great-grandfather built in 1914 as a monument to privacy.

There’s precious little of that for Pimentel during this summer of “overtourism.”

Travelers idling in standstill traffic outside the sunwashed walls of Casa do Cipreste sometimes spot the bell and pull the string “because it’s funny,” he says. With the windows open, he can smell the car exhaust and hear the “tuk-tuk” of outsized scooters named for the sound they make. And he can sense the frustration of 5,000 visitors a day who are forced to queue around the house on the crawl up single-lane switchbacks to Pena Palace, the onetime retreat of King Ferdinand II. Continue reading

One thing that hasn’t changed in Hollywood: male characters still more than double female ones

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This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Ryan Gosling, left, and Margot Robbie in a scene from “Barbie.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — In recent years the movie industry has gone through the streaming revolution, the pandemic, labor strikes and “Barbenheimer.” But after countless upheavals in Hollywood, you’re still more than twice as likely to see male speaking characters in theatrical releases than you are female ones.

Just 32% of speaking characters in the top 100 movies at the box office in 2023 were women or girls, according to the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative annual report released Monday. That’s very nearly the same percentage as when Stacy L. Smith first began the study in 2007. Then, it was 30% of speaking characters. Continue reading

Insider Q&A: LinkedIn is bullish on AI. Will that help job seekers?

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(AP Illustration/Jenni Sohn)

By HALELUYA HADERO AP Business Writer

Like many other technology companies, LinkedIn is all in on generative AI, the artificial intelligence systems that can create text, images and other media in response to queries.

The professional networking platform last month rolled out new AI features to help users search for jobs, tailor their resumes and create personalized cover letters from scratch.

Consumer-facing brands have shown more interest in LinkedIn, according to a May report by Emarketer, The market research firm credited the increased attention to new advertising formats and changes in user behavior on the Microsoft-owned platform.

The Associated Press recently spoke with LinkedIn Chief Product Officer Tomer Cohen about generative AI, the job market, brand marketing and TikTok creators. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Continue reading

Biden’s decision to drop out leaves Democrats across the country relieved and looking toward future

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George Ledbetter watches news of President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 race for the White House at They Say Restaurant in Harper Woods, Mich., Sunday, July 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI, MIKE HOUSEHOLDER and CHARLOTTE KRAMON Associated Press

HARPER WOODS, Mich. (AP) — After weeks of uncertainty about who would be at the top of the Democratic Party’s ticket in November, many voters expressed relief over the news that President Joe Biden would drop his reelection bid and began to think about who might replace him in a dramatically altered election landscape.

Jerod Keene, a 40-year-old athletic trainer from swing-state Arizona, had planned to vote for Biden in November but was thankful for the president’s decision, calling it “inevitable.” Keene said he’s excited about the next candidate, hoping it will be Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden endorsed on Sunday. Continue reading