COST Financial News

space sector.Q. What is the core of your research?A. I bring the tools of economics to the rapidly changing space sector.

Recruiters and headhunters who rode the wave of post-Covid hiring frenzy to quit their agencies and join HR/talent acquisition teams of companies, are now finding themselves in a tough spot as some organisations — mostly tech and startups — go slow on hiring amid efforts to cut costs. On Wednesday, Google let go of hundreds from its once nearly 3,000-strong recruiting team in its latest round of layoffs, saying it was «meaningfully slowing the pace of overall hiring» and «made the hard decision to reduce the size of (our) recruiting team». Industry insiders estimate that during the hiring boom, led by tech, thousands of recruitment professionals had jumped ship from staffing/recruitment/search firms to take up corporate talent acquisition roles, at up to 40-100% salary jumps. Many of these professionals have been facing the heat for some time now, recruitment and executive search firms including ABC Consultants, EMA Partners, and Randstad said, as a scaling back in hiring leaves them with little to do. «I am flooded with messages from recruiters wanting to join us,» said Viswanath PS, CEO of Randstad.

Wholesale inflation declined for the fifth consecutive month in August to 0.52% from 1.4% in July providing further comfort to the Reserve Bank of India to hold rates ahead of the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee in early October, experts said. «With fall in commodity prices driving deflation in core WPI on YoY basis (which implies lower input costs for producers), currently there is limited pressure on consumer prices, resulting in broadly stable CPI core inflation. This is likely to comfort the RBI,» said Rahul Bajoria, head of EM Asia (ex-China) economics, Barclays. RBI last raised policy rates to 6.5% in February and has not instituted a rate hike since.

OpenAI are advancing work on large language models (LLMs) that power mainstream generative AI (artificial intelligence), a few others are gearing up to deploy small AI models, which are likely to reach the consumers sometime in 2024. Industry insiders see this as a natural progression to monetizing generative AI technologies, making them more widely accessible, instead of targeting only enterprises through very expensive cloud platforms. For instance, on 23 February, Qualcomm demonstrated an image-generating AI model running on a device, with Stable Diffusion showcased on an Android smartphone.

Qantas will need to think carefully how it balances its social obligations with its cost rationalisation program, but it is not prevented from continuing to outsource workers after the High Court denied its appeal, a leading academic says.

Tata Motors, the country’s leading electric passenger vehicle company, is beginning to revamp its passenger vehicle line-up, including EVs, to stay competitive in a market where new launches from automakers are increasing choices for younger, aspirational Indian buyers. As the company scales up its EV production, it can localize further, and enhance cost structures. It has relaunched the Nexon, India’s largest selling electric car, and its IC-engine version at a starting price of ₹14.74 lakh and ₹8.09 lakh ex-showroom, respectively.

GALLATIN GATEWAY, Mont.—Fifth-generation rancher Bayard Black has a lot of city folks looking to pay top dollar to rent his spread in the mountains near Yellowstone National Park. He can thank John Dutton in part for that. The runaway popularity of the “Yellowstone" TV series, starring Kevin Costner as rancher patriarch Dutton, has helped spur interest among tourists to spend time on real ranches.

Within Denver’s Washington Park neighborhood, an enclave south of downtown where the median house listing price is just over $2 million, quintessential manicured American lawns roll out in front of historic brick bungalows, restored Victorians and contemporary new builds. Then there is Lisa Negri’s yard, which sits adjacent to her three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow where she’s lived since 2012. “It looks like nature," says Negri, 66, a retired engineer.

You almost have to admire the brass of the Biden White House. The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that Americans are poorer under Bidenomics, and the President quickly changed the subject to blame Republicans for rising child poverty on his watch. As usual, too many in the press corps bought the spin.

GST) on the use of a common brand name of the bank by all its branches and subsidiaries, said two people privy to the development. Certain lenders have started receiving GST notices regarding the use of the brand by the bank branches and subsidiaries, people cited above said. The development follows several orders by the Authority for Advanced Rulings (AAR) of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Karnataka specifying that each entity within a bank with a separate GST number will be considered a distinct entity for tax purposes.

NEW DELHI : EbixCash Ltd, payment services company that plans to go public, is yet to disclose in its draft share sale documents an adverse arbitration order passed by a Singapore court in June that could cost it ₹100-200 crore. The firm, a unit of Nasdaq-listed Ebix Inc., received the markets regulator’s approval for a ₹6,000 crore IPO in April. EbixCash purchased gift card provider ITZCash in 2017 and rebranded it to Ebix Payment Services (EPS), which now forms a big chunk of its business.

With a deadline looming, the United Auto Workers union and Detroit’s three automakers, General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, remain far apart in contract talks and the union is preparing to strike

The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate edged up this week, pushing up borrowing costs for prospective homebuyers already facing a housing market limited by a dearth of homes for sale and rising prices

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office says he will meet billionaire businessman Elon Musk during a trip to the United States next week

NEW DELHI : The department of food and public distribution will seek an exemption for sugar from mandatory 20% jute bag packaging starting next month. Sugar millers and factory owners wrote to the textile secretary last month, saying though jute bags were good for packaging grains, they were not ideal for sugar. Jute bags, being porous do not protect sugar from moisture, a senior government official aware of the matter said.The relaxation will also be sought on the grounds of the costs involved and operational challenges.

After pushing for six mandatory airbags to be installed in all cars from 1 October, the government withdrew that requirement. Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari said that it doesn’t want to make it compulsory since India’s own safety testing programme, the BNCAP, is now in place, and it would not award attractive safety ratings to cars without enough airbags.

China is speeding ahead in the electric-vehicle race. Europe’s antisubsidy investigation into Chinese EV makers reflects this new reality, but tariffs alone aren’t enough to keep Europe’s automakers in the fast lane. The European Union has launched a probe into whether state subsidies have given Chinese EV makers an unfair leg up as they accelerate into European markets.

NEW DELHI : The government is set to push for a better Logistics Performance Index (LPI) with plans to brief the World Bank about recent reforms and measures taken to improve logistics efficiency through schemes such as PM Gati Shaki, an official said on Thursday. Special secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Sumita Dawra said there was a need for greater emphasis on an objective methodology for LPI scoring whereas the World Bank’s methodology was based on perception surveys. India aims to break into the top 25 countries in the index ranking by 2030.

India can't seem to see the point in their preferred phones being made in India, yet costing more. And, yet, that is precisely the point. It doesn't matter that iPhones are expensive in the country as long as more of them are made here.

Vedanta Resources financial policy regarding debt transactions may result in a potential downgrade of its current 'B-' rating to 'CCC' or 'CC,' as detailed in their credit FAQ addressing the implications of a liability management exercise for Vedanta Resources' credit rating. This rating action will happen if Vedanta tries a debt deal without enough compensation or buys back debt at a lower price than its face value in secondary markets. If Vedanta goes through with such a deal, S&P would probably lower Vedanta's rating to 'SD' and the bond ratings affected by this would drop to ‘D'.

Commerce (ONDC) has expanded its reach into the international business-to-business marketplace by partnering with the Singapore-based B2B network Proxtera. With this move, ONDC, an initiative of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), aims to establish connections between small and medium enterprises (SMEs), logistics services and payment transfers, facilitating seamless export opportunities for Indian businesses.