Hello, this is Kenji from Hong Kong. The city is gradually shifting away from some of the strictest Covid control measures in the world, as local authorities scrapped the compulsory hotel quarantine for inbound travellers starting this week. It is certainly a positive step, but we are not quite back to normal. Other social distancing…
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Workers’ compensation (WC) claims can significantly dent a business’s productivity and margins. Out-of-work employees coerce company leaders to manage with inadequate workforces while training replacement staff and augmenting employee safety. The average cost for a WC claim is $41,003. A leading WC risk is ergonomics-based incidents, including manual material handling and repetitive upper extremity movements…
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Carmakers’ loudly promoted investments in electric vehicles are sending tremors through a lower-profile but huge industry: their parts suppliers. Suppliers that historically built components for internal combustion engines are feeling increasing pressure to adjust to battery power. It has not always been a smooth shift. The challenges are encapsulated in two companies with ties to…
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After some bitter defeats, Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, scored a big win recently after judges in Luxembourg largely upheld a record fine on Google for abusing its dominance of the search giant’s Android mobile phone operating system. Earlier this month, the European General Court ruled mostly in favour of Vestager’s decision to hand…
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The travel writer Bill Bryson once said the most striking thing about the British weather is that “there isn’t very much of it.” No tornadoes, no monsoons, virtually no raging blizzards. Britain was a land where you did not need air conditioning, where you could wear the same type of clothing every day of the…
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More than 1.8mn people in Florida are estimated to be without power after Hurricane Ian ploughed into the south-west of the state on Wednesday, inundating the coastline and tearing through infrastructure and property, according to PowerOutage.US, a website tracking power cuts across the country. Hurricane Ian made landfall at about 3.05pm Eastern time and was…
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The sudden disappearance in July last year of Gao Songtao, the bespectacled former vice-president of government fund manager Sino IC Capital, was a warning of a coming storm. Months later, the Chinese Communist party’s internal watchdog confirmed that Gao had been under investigation for corruption. Yet it was not President Xi Jinping’s public campaign to…
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More than 1mn people in Florida are estimated to be without power after Hurricane Ian ploughed into the south-west of the state on Wednesday, inundating the coastline and tearing through infrastructure and property. According to PowerOutage.US, a website tracking power cuts across the US, more than 1.3mn people in south-western Florida were without electricity by…
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Healthcare organizations including Kaiser Permanente, Boston Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital are making investments in nutrition and food insecurity programs as part of a White House initiative aiming to end hunger and reduce diet-related disease by 2030. The plans are part of a more than $8 billion commitment from public and private entities to…
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Hospitals and health systems are looking to do more to address financial stress among employees, particularly those earning lower wages. Besides pay hikes, employers are implementing income-based benefits, including more voluntary healthcare coverage, to retain and recruit workers amid higher inflation and the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. At 37% of hospital systems, benefit contributions…
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