CNN (March 18)
“All but one of the 100 cities with the world’s worst air pollution last year were in Asia… with the climate crisis playing a pivotal role in bad air quality that is risking the health of billions of people worldwide.” Of these, 83 cities “were in India and all exceeded the World Health Organization’s air quality guidelines” for PM2.5 “by more than 10 times.”
Tags: Air pollution, Asia, Cities, Climate crisis, Guidelines, Health, https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/18/climate/air-pollution-report-2023-asia-climate-intl-hnk/index.html Worst, India, PM2.5, Quality, Risking, WHO
Wall Street Journal (May 12)
“Job satisfaction hit a 36-year high in 2022, reflecting two effects of the tight pandemic labor market: The quality of jobs improved as wages and work flexibility increased, and workers moved into positions that were a better fit.” The Conference Board found that worker satisfaction increased from 56.8% in 2020 to 62.3% in 2022.”
Tags: 2022, Conference Board, Flexibility, Job satisfaction, Labor market, Pandemic, Quality, Wages, Work
WARC (May Issue)
With ad-blocker adoption soaring on mobile devices, “a lighter ad load may prove more effective for brands, with ‘too many ads’ being the most damaging factor for brands according to consumers. A growing focus on audience attention is also emerging, particularly around advertising in quality environments.”
Tags: Ad-blocker, Advertising, Attention, Audience, Brands, Consumers, Damaging, Effective, Environments, Mobile devices, Quality
The Economist (May 11)
Companies are really bad at hiring. “Only a third of American companies check whether their recruitment process produces good employees” and obvious flaws in hiring practices are rampant. “Everyone should worry that companies are less rigorous about evaluating the performance of their staff than about the quality of the raw materials they put in their products.” This helps to explain why productivity has been so sluggish.
Tags: Companies, Employees, Evaluating, Flaws, Hiring, Performance, Productivity, Quality, Raw materials, Recruitment, Rigorous, Staff, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (March 2)
“The fundamental economic issue facing America” is not headline-grabbing income inequality, but rather “jobs—their scarcity and the quality of those that people manage to find.” When the marginally employed are included, the real unemployment rate is closer to 13% and part-time jobs now account for 18% of the workforce. “Job losses in the low-wage and minimum-wage category is the critical issue of our day: Too many of the poor are not working full time or at all.”
Tags: Full-time, Income inequality, Job losses, Jobs, Minimum wage, Poor, Quality, Scarcity, U.S., Unemployment, Wages, Work, Workforce
Financial Times (August 19)
Auditors bear some blame for the financial crisis, yet little has been done to improve the quality of their audits. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has now proposed more detailed disclosure to highlight items of concern, even when a company passes the audit. “The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has the final say, should adopt the PCAOB’s proposal. This would match similar rules passed by the UK’s Financial Reporting Council…. Pass-fail cannot distinguish accounts that pass with flying colours and those that barely scrape by. Investors deserve better – and investors are auditors’ true constituency even if managers are their employers.”
Tags: Auditors, Audits, Disclosure, Financial Crisis, Financial Reporting Council, Investors, Pass-fail, PCAOB, Quality, Rules, SEC, UK
Industry Week (April 20)
Changing economics are starting to favor manufacturing in the U.S. A study by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that over “a third of U.S.-based manufacturing executives at companies with sales greater than $1 billion are planning to bring back production to the United States from China or are considering it.” Larger companies with revenues of at least $10 billion are even more enthusiastic, with 48% considering reshoring. Considerations driving this new trend include labor costs, product quality, ease of doing business, and proximity to customers.
Tags: Boston Consulting Group, China, Costs, Manufacturing, Quality, Reshoring, U.S.
