Economy

In an initial move, the coffeehouse chain said Workers United members would get improved benefits that other employees received in 2022.Starbucks and the union that represents employees in roughly 400 of its U.S. stores announced Tuesday that they were beginning discussions on a “foundational framework” that would help the company reach labor agreements with unionized workers and resolve litigation between the two sides.The union greeted the development as a major shift in strategy for Starbucks, which has taken steps to resist union organizing at the company since the campaign began in 2021, moves that federal labor regulators have said violated labor law hundreds of times.Starbucks, which has denied the accusations, said in a statement that it hoped to have contracts negotiated and ratified by the end of the year and would agree to a “fair process for organizing” — something the union has demanded for years. It said that, as a gesture of good faith, it was providing unionized workers with benefits it introduced in 2022 but withheld from union stores, like an option for customers to tip via credit card.Representatives of both Starbucks and the union, Workers United, said that while details must be worked out, they hoped to be back at the bargaining table in the coming weeks. Negotiations between the two sides had largely lapsed over the past several months.Workers who have helped lead the organizing said the development had surprised them. “It still feels pretty surreal right now,” said Michelle Eisen, a longtime barista at a Starbucks in Buffalo that was the first company-owned store to unionize during the current campaign. “There has not been a single call I’ve been on today where either I wasn’t crying or everyone else wasn’t crying.”If a framework is agreed to and quickly leads to contracts, experts said, it could be a major development in labor relations in corporate America, where companies like Amazon and Apple have resisted union organizing to varying degrees.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

LONDON (Reuters) – Luxury residential property bucked the trend of falling prices in 2023 and rose 3.1%, as double-digit gains in the likes of Manila and Dubai offset falls in New York and London, Knight Frank said on Wednesday.A jump in borrowing costs, inflation and economic uncertainty hit property markets last year, causing a significant drop in transaction volumes.That helped support prices of luxury properties, along with a rise in the portfolios of the rich as stock markets rebounded, according to property agents Knight Frank.The Philippine capital, Manila, topped the list of 100 markets Knight Frank tracks, with prices jumping 26%, followed by Dubai at 15% and the Bahamas at 15%. Luxury prices in New York and London declined 2% in 2023 and are now 8% and 17% lower than their most recent peaks respectively, Knight Frank said in its flagship The Wealth Report.”As wealth portfolios recovered in 2023, affluent buyers targeted residential property in the world’s luxury markets,” Liam Bailey, global head of research at Knight Frank, said in a statement.Kate Everett-Allen, head of international residential and country research, noted that while “the pandemic-fuelled property boom was set to end in tears as borrowing costs hit 15-year highs”, there had been “a much softer landing” for prices.Unlike residential markets, commercial real estate is having a tougher downturn, as the working from home trend pushes up vacancy rates and high borrowing costs hit the value of office blocks.Global commercial real estate investment tumbled 46% in 2023 to $698 billion, driven by a pullback from U.S. investors, Knight Frank found.Industrial and logistics beat offices to become the most invested sector for the first time on record, winning a share of a quarter of all global investment while the office market shrunk to a 22% share from 25% in 2022, Knight Frank said.Private real estate investors, the most active buyers in 2023, look set to increase their buying activity in 2024 as they seek to take advantage of “dislocation” in the market, the London-based agents said. More

TOKYO (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar held steady as traders brushed off durable goods data overnight and awaited the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation due Thursday for clues on when the U.S. central bank may start cutting interest rates.The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s (RBNZ) interest rate decision later in the Asian morning also has market participants on edge, with the New Zealand dollar calm ahead of what could turn out to be a significant policy meeting.In the U.S., the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau said orders for durable goods fell 6.1% last month, exceeding the 4.5% decline forecast by economists polled by Reuters.The data did not seem to faze the market, with all eyes on the U.S. core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index due on Thursday. Forecasts are for a rise of 0.4%.”FX markets appear to be taking a nap in the run up to the core PCE print later in the week,” said Charu Chanana, head of currency strategy at Saxo.Markets have largely priced out a rate cut at both the Fed’s March and May meeting, CME’s FedWatch Tool showed, following strong U.S. consumer and producer price data. The chance of a cut in June sits around 51%.The U.S. dollar index, which measures the currency against a basket of peers, hovered around 103.82.With market expectations more closely aligned with the Fed’s latest projections and comments, traders would only respond if they see a trend break in tier one data, “particularly hinting at growth weakness,” said Chanana.”Meanwhile, the focus will be outside the U.S., particularly RBNZ meeting today or Eurozone inflation on Friday, to revive some level of volatility in the FX markets.” The euro consolidated as Europe awaited its own slew of inflation reports, with German states, France and Spain scheduled to release inflation data on Thursday ahead of the euro area’s figures due on Friday.The euro was mostly unchanged versus the greenback at $1.0844. It has been rising since mid-February, when it hit its lowest since Nov. 14.Elsewhere, the kiwi held firm at $0.6171, as traders braced for the RBNZ’s decision.Markets are pricing in a one-in-three chance the RBNZ will raise its 5.5% official cash rate to combat stubborn inflation, and all but one of the 28 economists polled by Reuters expect the RBNZ to keep its cash rate at a 15-year high of 5.50%.The Australian dollar was mostly unchanged at $0.65455 ahead of monthly consumer price data due at 0030 GMT. Annual inflation is expected to accelerate to 3.6% from 3.4%.The yen, meanwhile, was holding around 150.52 per dollar after strengthening as much as 150.08 against the greenback overnight.Inflation data on Tuesday showed Japan’s core consumer inflation exceeded forecasts and kept alive some expectations that the Bank of Japan might end negative interest rates by April.In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin was last up 0.54% at $57,035.76 as it continued to surge after jumping to a more than two-year high above $57,000 on Tuesday. More

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – With just seven months to go in Kristalina Georgieva’s term as head of the International Monetary Fund, she said on Tuesday that she isn’t focused on whether to seek a second one.Georgieva, whose five-year term ends in October, told Reuters she was focused on the work at hand as the IMF managing director.”Look, I have work to do right now,” she told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the a meeting of finance officials from the Group of 20 major economies.”I have always been of the view that you do the job you have – not some hypothetical in the future. So let me do my job.”Georgieva, a gregarious economist from Bulgaria, is the second woman to head the IMF and the first person from an emerging market economy.Keeping Georgieva on for a second term would answer longstanding concerns raised by emerging market and developing countries over the U.S.-European duopoly at the two global financial institutions, the IMF and World Bank.A self-described “eternal optimist”, Georgieva has weathered huge shocks to the global economy ranging from the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic just months after she took office to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. She is focused on bolstering prospects for medium-term growth which is lagging historical levels, managing the ongoing sovereign debt challenges and guiding the IMF through a complicated quota revamp.Georgieva drew criticism inside and outside the Fund early on for her push to include climate change as a factor in surveillance reports on member countries’ economies and her great interest in emerging market and developing economies.She’s been instrumental in securing large loans for Ukraine, helping to catalyze additional funds to help its economy weather the strains of the two-year war against Russia’s invasion, overseen a revamp of Argentina’s massive loan program and worked steadily to help China embrace sovereign debt restructurings.She also survived a big personal challenge in 2021 when the IMF’s executive board expressed its full confidence in her after reviewing allegations that she pressured World Bank staff to alter data to favor China while serving in a top role at that institution.U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen put Georgieva on notice at the time that she would closely monitor the IMF’s follow-up and evaluate any new facts or findings, but the two have developed a good relationship since that time, according to sources familiar with both officials.Under a longstanding agreement, European countries traditionally nominate a candidate to lead the IMF, while the U.S. nominates a candidate to head the World Bank. Both jobs are ultimately decided by the institutions’ board of directors.Georgieva herself was a compromise candidate for European leaders who were divided between a former Dutch finance minister and a Spanish economy minister in 2019 to replace outgoing IMF chief Christine Lagarde. Sources familiar with the process said the selection could go quickly once Europe unites around a candidate. While Georgieva’s term won’t end for months, some say it makes sense to make decisions before the April spring meetings of the IMF and World Bank, so the leadership issue does not overshadow the already full agenda for the meetings. More

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday ruled that a $1.7 trillion government funding bill was unconstitutionally passed in 2022 through a pandemic-era rule that allowed lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote by proxy rather than in person.U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in Lubbock reached that conclusion as he granted Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to block a provision of that bill that gave pregnant workers stronger legal protections.The judge called the scope of his ruling “limited,” and said it did not block all of the spending law. Texas had only sought to block two provisions ultimately.Hendrix, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, blocked the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act from being enforced against the state as an employer after finding the funding bill was wrongly passed.That law requires employers to provide pregnant workers with reasonable accommodations. The injunction Hendrix issued only applies to state government employees and not other workers in Texas.Paxton, in a lawsuit filed last year, argued the spending package enacted in December 2022 was unconstitutionally passed as more than half of the House, then led by Democrats, were not physically present to provide quorum and voted by proxy.Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi helped implement the proxy voting rule in May 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergency measure. It was ditched when Republicans took control of the House following the 2022 elections after an earlier unsuccessful court challenge.In a 120-page ruling, Hendrix said that for over two centuries before the “novel” proxy voting rule’s adoption, Congress understood that the Constitution’s quorum clause required a majority of members of the House or Senate to be physically present to have quorum to pass legislation.”Supreme Court precedent has long held that the Quorum Clause requires presence, and the Clause’s text distinguishes those absent members from the quorum and provides a mechanism for obtaining a physical quorum by compelling absent members to attend,” he wrote.The U.S. Department of Justice, which defended the bill on behalf of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration, had no immediate comment.Matthew Miller, a lawyer with the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation who represented the state, said the ruling “correctly” concluded a physical quorum was required.While Hendrix ruled in Texas’ favor, he found the state lacked standing to challenge $20 million appropriated in the bill to fund a pilot program that provided voluntary case management and other services to  noncitizens in immigration removal proceedings. More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, sometimes seen as global monetary policy’s “canary in the coal mine,” takes center stage in the Asia and Pacific region on Wednesday when it delivers its latest interest rate decision.Australia’s January inflation data are also on tap – annual inflation is expected to accelerate to 3.6% from 3.4% – and markets across the region should be relatively calm at the open after a quiet global session on Tuesday.U.S. Treasury yields inched up slightly on Tuesday after the bond market absorbed a $42 billion auction of seven-year paper without much trouble. This was a day after $127 billion worth of two- and five-year bonds were sold, and the relative ease with which these sales passed is encouraging for investors.The dollar flat-lined, the yen’s rise on the back of surprisingly sticky Japanese inflation was minimal, Wall Street was mixed but within narrow ranges, and global and Asian stocks edged up a bit. All in all, a quiet session on Tuesday that is unlikely to give much direction for Asia on Wednesday, which means even more attention falls on the RBNZ’s rate decision.All but one of the 28 economists polled by Reuters expect the RBNZ to keep its cash rate at a 15-year high of 5.50%, with the outlier at ANZ going for a 25 basis point hike.That’s clearly a non-consensus call, but perhaps not all that outlandish. The swaps market is attaching around a 23% probability of a hike on Wednesday, and a near 50-50 likelihood of an increase by May. Inflation at 4.7% remains well above the central bank’s target range of 1-3%. RBNZ Governor Adrian Orr said recently that the inflation challenge was not over, and the central bank’s aim was to continue to slow it to around 2%.That 2% goal pursued by many major central banks today was invented in New Zealand in the late 1980s. With inflation running high at the time, the then finance minister plucked the 2% figure out of the air and a couple of years later New Zealand became the first country to formally have an inflation-targeting goal.Fast forward to today, and the RBNZ is in the same boat as many other central banks, facing sticky inflation, a strong labor market, weak growth, high mortgage rates, and a vulnerable consumer. Unlike the U.S. Fed, however, the RBNZ no longer has a dual mandate – its sole target is inflation. Will it surprise markets with a hike? Possibly, but as Brent Donnelly at Spectra Markets notes, since 2000 the RBNZ has never raised the cash rate when it has been above the two-year swap rate. Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Wednesday:- New Zealand interest rate decision- Australia inflation (January)- Hong Kong GDP (Q4, final) (By Jamie McGeever) More

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(Reuters) -Apple has canceled work on its electric car, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday, a decade after the iPhone maker kicked off the project.Shares of the company were up 0.7% in afternoon trading, having pared some losses from earlier in the trading day.Several employees working on the electric car project will be shifted to the firm’s artificial intelligence (AI) division, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the development.Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) declined to comment.High interest rates to tame inflation have soured consumer sentiment and led to a slowdown in demand for usually pricier electric vehicles, prompting the industry to cut jobs and reduce production. Several major automakers, including EV market leader Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), have decided to pull back on investments, with some shifting plans to focus on hybrids instead of fully battery-powered cars.Apple kicked off Project Titan, as its car effort was known internally, a decade ago, as a wave of interest in self-driving vehicles swept through Silicon Valley. Reuters reported in 2020 that Apple was considering releasing a vehicle as soon as 2024 or 2025.But progress had been uneven even before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global automotive industry.Apple had laid off 190 workers from the group in 2019 after revamping its software approach.The design of the concept vehicle also changed, from a radical, steering-wheel-free autonomous vehicle that would have been a departure from traditional automotive design, to a more conventional car with advanced driver-assistance features. More