 |
|
|
|||||
This year, the number of mothers with young children exiting the U.S. labor market saw the sharpest January-to-June decline in more than four decades. That isnt a coincidenceand it isnt a lack of ambition. Across industries, women are reassessing howand whetherwork fits into their lives. Not because they want to step back, but because too many workplaces are still designed around outdated assumptions about who provides care and how work gets done. As leaders debate return-to-office mandates, women are quietly doing the mathand deciding whether staying is worth the cost. This isnt a womens issue. Its a design failure. And its one leaders can choose to fix. THE PERPETUAL STRUGGLE OF THE DOUBLE SHIFT The pandemic exposed and intensified a long-standing dilemma: how working women can balance their careers with family demands. Even years later, in dual-income households, women continue to shoulder the majority of caregiving responsibilities, often juggling work, childcare, elder care, and the invisible but relentless mental load that comes with it. Even now, many women are still working two full-time jobs: one at work and another at home. In a recent workplace study conducted by my company, 65% of working mothers reported carrying more household and childcare responsibilities than their partners, and nearly half said they shoulder most of the mental and emotional burden at home. When workplaces remain rigid and unsupportive, that strain compounds, pushing women toward burnout or out of the workforce entirely. Now, rigid return-to-office (RTO) mandates threaten to add more fuel to the fire. For the first time since COVID, most Fortune 100 companies have reinstated full-time, in-office policies, and women are among the groups disproportionately affected. In our study, three out of four working women said RTO mandates make it harder for them to stay in the workforce long term. THE HIGH COST OF LOSING SENIOR FEMALE TALENT Supporting and retaining female talent isn’t only about equity; its about competitive advantage. While losing top-performing talent of either gender can hurt, when senior female leaders leave, there are broader financial and cultural ripple effects. The business case is well established: when women hold 30% or more executive roles within an organization, the company outperforms its peers. In a competitive labor market, the ability to attract and retain top talentincluding highly educated, experienced womencan make or break a company’s growth trajectory. THE REDESIGN: FLEXIBILITY, SUPPORT, AND TRUST The solution isnt another round of workplace perks. Its redesigning work. Im a strong believer in the value of coming together in person. Offices create connections and strengthen culture in ways that are hard to replicate remotely. They provide an environment for collaboration and problem-solving. But returning to the office can exacerbate the challenges many employeesespecially caregiversare navigating if not done thoughtfully. How work is structured matters just as much as where it happens. Flexibility isnt about eliminating expectations or avoiding the office. Its about trusting employees to manage their time responsibly and deliver results within a clear, well-designed framework. Our research shows that 90% of employees believe return-to-office policieswhether hybrid or full-timeare more successful when companies pair them with real support, including mental health resources, reasonable flexibility, and leaders who model balance and trust. Ive lived this firsthand. For nearly a decade, I built an executive career while caring for my father through repeated ICU and hospital stays and critical illness. I was fortunate to have the support of my husband, friends, and familybut what made it truly possible was the flexibility and trust my managers extended to me during that time. That trust wasnt given lightly; I earned it through commitment and performance. In return, their support during one of the hardest periods of my life made me fiercely loyal to my company and a stronger, more empathetic leader. Practical support matters just as much. Flexible time-off policies, backup care for emergencies, elder care resources, and mental health services arent perkstheyre infrastructure and are foundational to productivity, engagement, and loyalty. Companies invest millions in office space and technology. To truly benefit from those investments, they must also invest in systems that allow people to show up consistently, focused, and ready to do their best work. And this isnt only about women. Forty percent of men now identify as their familys primary caregiver. If organizations dont support them as well, the imbalance many women experience will only grow. I know from my own life that even today, I couldnt manage my work and family responsibilities without my husbands partnership. BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS Companies face a clear choice: cling to outdated assumptions about work and risk losing talented women or evolve how they support work. Some organizations will operate in hybrid models; others will return fully to the office. The real differentiator wont be the policy itself; it will be how thoughtfully leaders design and support work within it, especially for caregivers. Redesigning work doesnt mean lowering standards. It means aligning expectations with how life actually works, and giving people the structure, support, and trust they need to perform at a high level. Workplaces built this way dont just retain womenthey build stronger cultures, develop better leaders, and outperform over the long term. Alison Borland is Chief People and Strategy Officer at Modern Health.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Federal Aviation Administration reopened the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas on Wednesday morning, just hours after it announced a 10-day closure that would have grounded all flights to and from the airport.The Federal Aviation Administration said in a social media post that it has lifted the temporary closure of the airspace over El Paso, saying there was no threat to commercial aviation and that all flights will resume.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”He said normal flights are resuming Wednesday morning.He did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.The shutdown announced just hours earlier “for special security reasons” had been expected to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area.El Paso, a border city with a population of nearly 700,000 people and larger when you include the surrounding metro area, is hub of cross-border commerce alongside the neighboring city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. The brief closure does not include Mexican airspace.The airport said in an Instagram post after the closure was announced that all flights to and from the airport would be grounded from late Tuesday through late on February 20, including commercial, cargo, and general aviation flights. It suggested travelers contact their airlines to get up-to-date flight information.Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, had urged the FAA to lift the restrictions in a statement Wednesday morning. There was no advance notice given to her office, the city of El Paso or airport operations, she said.“The highly consequential decision by FAA to shut down the El Paso Airport for 10 days is unprecedented and has resulted in significant concern within the community,” Escobar said. “From what my office and I have been able to gather overnight and early this morning there is no immediate threat to the community or surrounding areas.”The airport describes itself as the gateway to west Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Southwest, United, American, and Delta all operate flights there, among others.A similar temporary flight restriction for special security reasons over the same time period was imposed around Santa Teresa, New Mexico, which is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of the El Paso airport.Southwest Airlines said in a statement that it has paused all operations to and from El Paso at the direction of the FAA.“We have notified affected customers and will share additional information as it becomes available,” Southwest Airlines said. “Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees.” Darlene Superville, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Kraft Heinz said Wednesday it’s pausing its plans to split into two companies.Steve Cahillane, a former Kellogg Co. chief who became CEO of Kraft Heinz on Jan. 1, said he wants to ensure that all of the company’s resources are focused on profitable growth.“I have seen that the opportunity is larger than expected and that many of our challenges are fixable and within our control,” Cahillane said in a statement.The company’s shares dropped 5.2% in early trading Wednesday as Kraft Heinz reported lower quarterly and annual results.Kraft Heinz announced in September it was splitting into two companies a decade after a merger of the brands created one of the biggest food manufacturers on the planet.One of the companies would include stronger-selling brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other would include slower-selling brands like Maxwell House, Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables.At the time, Kraft Heinz said it expected the split to be finalized in the second half of this year.On Wednesday, the company said it will pivot from the split and invest $600 million in marketing, sales and product development.In its fourth-quarter earnings release Wednesday, CEO Steve Cahillane said Kraft Heinz’s balance sheet and free cash flow potential were strong.“We are confident in the opportunity ahead and believe this investment will accelerate our return to profitable growth,” Callihane said. Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
U.S. employers added a surprisingly strong 130,000 jobs last month, but government revisions cut 2024-2025 U.S. payrolls by hundreds of thousands.The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, the Labor Department said Wednesday.The report included major revisions that reduced the number of jobs created last year to just 181,000, weakest since the pandemic year of 2020, and less than half the previously reported 584,000.The job market has been sluggish for months even though the economy is registering solid growth.But the January numbers came in stronger than the 75,000 economists had expected. Healthcare accounted for nearly 82,000, or more than 60%, of last month’s new jobs. Factories added 5,000, snapping a streak of 13 straight months of job losses. The federal government shed 34,000 jobs.Average hourly wages rose a solid 0.4% from December to January.The unemployment rate fell from 4.4% in December as the number of employed Americans rose and the number of unemployed fell.Weak hiring over the past year reflects the lingering impact of high interest rates, billionaire Elon Musk’s purge last year of the federal workforce and uncertainty arising from President Donald Trump’s erratic trade policies, which have left businesses unsure about hiring.Dreary numbers have been coming in ahead of Wednesday’s report. Employers posted just 6.5 million job openings in December, fewest in more than five years.Payroll processor ADP reported last week that private employers added 22,000 jobs in January, far fewer than economists had forecast. And the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that companies slashed more than 108,000 jobs last month, the most since October and the worst January for job cuts since 2009.Several well-known companies announced layoffs last month. UPS is cutting 30,000 jobs. Chemicals giant Dow, shifting to more automation and artificial intelligence, is cutting 4,500 jobs. And Amazon is slashing 16,000 corporate jobs, its second round of mass layoffs in three months.The sluggish job market doesn’t match the economy’s performance.From July to September, America’s gross domestic productits output of goods and servicesgalloped ahead at a 4.4% annual pace, fastest in two years. Consumer spending was strong, and growth got a boost from rising exports and tumbling imports. And that came on top of solid 3.8% growth from April through June.Economists are puzzling out whether job creation will eventually accelerate to catch up to strong growth, perhaps as President Donald Trump’s tax cuts translate into big tax refunds that consumers start spending this year. But there are other possibilities. GDP growth could slow and fall into line with a weak labor market or advances in AI and automation could mean that the economy can roar ahead without creating many jobs.Wednesday’s report included the government’s annual benchmark revisions, meant to take into account the more-accurate jobs numbers that employers report to state unemployment agencies. They cut 898,000 jobs from payrolls in the year ending March 2025.Despite recent high-profile layoffs, the unemployment rate has looked better than the hiring numbers.That is partly because President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has reduced the number of foreign-born people competing for work.As a result, the number of new jobs that the economy needs to create to keep the unemployment rate from risingthe “break-even” pointhas tumbled. In 2023, when immigrants were pouring into the United States, it reached a high of 250,000, according to economist Anton Cheremukhin of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. By mid-2025, Cheremukhin found, it was down to 30,000. Researchers at the Brookings Institution believe it could now be as low as 20,000 and headed lower.The combination of weak hiring but low unemployment means that most American workers are enjoying job security. But those who are looking for jobsespecially young people who can be competing at the entry level with AI and automationoften struggle to land one. Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
There are few things everyone can rally behind as much as finding a lost dog. But what if that mission is actually a workaround for mass surveillance? Thats the question many people are asking following a Super Bowl commercial from Ring, Amazon’s doorbell camera and home security brand. The 30-second video shows a series of missing dog posters and claims that 10 million pets go missing every year. It pitches Rings Search Party feature as the solution. Launched in November, Search Party takes a photo of the pet and taps into Ring cameras across the area. They can then use AI to identify the missing pet and send an alert. The ad claims that at least one dog a day has been found since the feature launched. It sounds like a happy ending, except that critics of Search Party see the ads framing as a way to normalize widespread biometric identification and a loss of privacy. Take a response from WeRateDogs, a dog-lovers’ account connected to 15/10 Foundation, a nonprofit raising money to get necessary medical help for shelter dogs. In a video posted to Bluesky on Tuesday, the brands creator, Matt Nelson, states, Neither Rings products nor business model are built around finding lost pets, but rather creating a mass surveillance network by turning private homes into surveillance outposts and well-meaning neighbors into informants for ICE and other government agencies. Solutions for finding lost dogs already exist Nelson further claims that Rings success rate of one dog found per day equals about 0.03% of reports shared. Instead of using Search Party, he suggests dog owners get their pet microchippeda common means of tracking lost dogs. Vets and some shelters can microchip dogs. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit focused on defending civil liberties in the digital world, takes a similar stance on Ring. “The addition of AI-driven biometric identification is the latest entry in the companys history of profiting off of public safety worries and disregard for individual privacy, one that turbocharges the extreme dangers of allowing this to carry on, EFF wrote in response to the ad. The nonprofit continues: People need to reject this kind of disingenuous framing and recognize the potential end result: a scary overreach of the surveillance state designed to catch us all in its net. EFF points to instances such as in 2023, when Ring had to pay $5.8 million to settle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after Ring employees were found to have had extensive access to customer footageincluding in intimate spaces. In reaching the settlement, Ring denied violating the law. [Photo: Amazon] In early 2024, Ring claimed it would stop providing footage to the police without a warrant. But both Nelson and the EFF point to Rings late-2025 partnerships with Flock Safety and Axon. The companies can request footage from Ring customerswithout a warrantfor a case and then send it to thousands of law enforcement agencies. Fast Company has reached out to Ring for comment and will update this post if we hear back. A May 2025 report by 404 Media found that police using Flocks AI license plate reader regularly put the reason as ICE. In a specific case, the Johnson County Sheriffs Office in Texas, used Flock in its search for a woman who self-administered an abortion. How to turn off Rings Search Party feature Rings Search Party feature is on by default, but users can turn it off. According to Amazons Ring support, you can turn off the Search Party feature by: Going to the Ring app and tap the menu icon (three lines) Clicking Control Center Choosing Search Party Tapping Enable or Disable Search for Lost Pets (Click the blue Pet icon next to it if you want to turn it on or off for specific cameras) Nelson’s post on Bluesky has attracted thousands of shares and hundreds of comments, with some pointing to a Reddit thread in which users are saying they plan to return their Ring camera for a refund.
Category:
E-Commerce
Sites : [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] next »