Reuters (March 26)
“Thanks to advances in AI, chips and hardware, the United States and China are now racing to develop humanoid robots that can be deployed in factories, restaurants, hospitals and even households. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently declared that in less than five years, humanoid robots will be widely used in manufacturing.” At the moment, “China has shaky upper hand in battle of the robots” and tremendous motivation to succeed. The country faces a tremendous “labour crunch: in 2021 officials forecasted a shortage of nearly 30 million manufacturing workers by 2025” and this is projected to grow worse as China’s workforce continues to contract.
Tags: AI, Battle, China, Chips, Crunch, Factories, Hardware, Hospitals, Households, Huang, Humanoid, Labour, Manufacturing, Nvidia, Restaurants, Robots, Shortage, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (June 24)
“Food-delivery apps responded to cities’ new wage increase requirements for gig workers by ratcheting up fees. Now, they are contending with frustrated consumers, plunging restaurant orders and an exodus of delivery drivers.” In response, Seattle plans to roll back the tighter regulation based on “outcry from drivers and restaurants over its devastating” effect.
Tags: Apps, Cities, Consumers, Drivers, Exodus, Fees, Food-delivery, Frustrated, Gig workers, Orders, Outcry, Regulation, Restaurants, Seattle, Wages
New York Times (June 6)
Office building losses are starting to “pile up, and more pain is expected.” The culprits? Weak demand for office space and interest rates and other costs that are higher than in many years. “The repercussions could extend far beyond the owners of these buildings and their lenders. A sustained drop in the value of commercial real estate could sap property tax revenue” that cities depend on and “hurt restaurants and other businesses that served the companies and workers who occupied those spaces.”
Tags: Cities, Costs, CRE, Culprits, Interest rates, Lenders, Losses, Office building, Office space, Owners, Pain, Pile up, Property tax, Repercussions, Restaurants, Weak demand
Philadelphia Inquirer (August 24)
“This is a new phase of vaccinations’ Get tough. Restaurants, cruise lines, colleges, and a growing number of employers—hospitals, municipal governments, Amtrak, Citigroup—are telling workers and customers to prove they’ve been vaccinated or go elsewhere. And all that was before Monday’s full authorization of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.”
Tags: Amtrak, Authorization, Citigroup, Colleges, Cruise lines, Customers, Employers, Hospitals, Pfizer-BioNTech, Phase, Restaurants, Vaccinations, Workers
San Francisco Chronicle (May 16)
“Pandemic or not, restaurants can’t find rental space.” The real estate landscape is “nearly as heated as pre-pandemic levels.” One would expect “tons of options on the market at reasonable rates, but there are few deals—and competition for what’s available is intense…. Landlords, meanwhile, are hesitant to offer discounts because they’ve lacked income over the pandemic themselves.”
Tags: Competition, Deals, Discounts, Heated, Income, Landlords, Market, Pandemic, Pre-pandemic levels, Real estate, Rental space, Restaurants
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (April 22)
“The coronavirus has pulverized the balance sheets of many restaurants. But anyone with a drive-thru had a potential advantage as Americans shifted their eating habits and seating positions.” Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A is in that enviable position. Though “the vast majority” of the firm’s 2,000 dining rooms were closed due to the pandemic and remain that way, “sales and profits have soared over the last year.”
Tags: Advantage, Balance sheets, Chick-fil-A, Closed, Coronavirus, Dining rooms, Drive-thru, Eating habits, Pandemic, Profits, Pulverized, Restaurants, Sales, U.S.
Boston Globe (April 5)
“After a year of forced dormancy, the restaurant industry is scrambling to get ready for an expected boom this summer…. Despite a massive labor pool, some restaurants say they are having trouble finding people willing to return to the business. The pandemic, it seems, prompted some to reconsider life in an industry notorious for difficult working conditions.”
Tags: Boom, Dormancy, Industry, Labor pool, Notorious, Pandemic, Reconsider, Restaurants, Scrambling, Summer
Boston Globe (September 18)
“With major Boston-area employers extending work-from-home policies until 2021 or beyond and events and concerts and eating inside at restaurants and other fun activities either canceled, postponed, or greatly scaled back, the question has to be asked: Will we ever wear real clothes again?”
Tags: Boston, Canceled, Concerts, Employers, Events, Fun, Postponed, Restaurants, Scaled back, Work-from-home
Market Watch (May 22)
“Sweden’s policy of keeping schools, restaurants and businesses open while practising social distancing to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from spreading was seen as bold, but now it has now it has the highest deaths per capita in Europe from COVID-19.”
Tags: Businesses, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Deaths, Europe, Pandemic, Prevent, Restaurants, Schools, Social distancing, Sweden
Wall Street Journal (April 16)
“Can we please stop talking about “reopening” the U.S. economy?… There is no on-off switch. Swaths of the economy—restaurants, travel, retail shops—were already shrinking before governments ordered them shut, because people were afraid to dine, travel or shop. These fears will abate gradually, with the pace dictated by the course of the virus, not by anybody’s decree.”
Tags: Economy, Fears, Governments, Pace, Reopening, Restaurants, Retail, Travel, U.S., Virus
