Courtesy of Laura Leavitt
The conversation started because of a windfall: it was the first month that we didn't have the preschool tuition payment because my son was starting kindergarten. "I'd love for this money not to just disappear into the monthly budget," I said to my husband.
He nodded, and immediately had a suggestion. "What if we used it to start up a brokerage account? It'd be good to have some investments that are accessible without penalty before retirement."
I knew, deep down, that this was a reasonable response to my point: we both already were on board with the idea of paying ourselves first, where we commit to an amount ahead of time for savings and retirement investments and then live on whatever we earn above that. This strategy served us well, and I wasn't opposed… exactly.
"I was actually hoping to use some of it to add to our emergency fund," I told him slowly. "And maybe getting some additional solar panels I've been looking at."
We have recently lived through instability that made me really appreciate the kinds of standard comforts that are currently easily accessible. Our family experienced the impact of a major hurricane only two years ago (Hurricane Helene), and when water, electricity, and telecommunications were interrupted for days and then weeks, I realized that a relatively modest amount of money and supplies would have made weathering a period of instability easier.
This is the place where my husband and I diverge: I tend to see things somewhat pessimistically, believing there's a good chance supply chains will be interrupted more than a few times during our lifetimes due to a variety of factors.
My husband has a generally optimistic, risk-tolerant approach to life. He knows we've made a solid plan for retirement, so he sees that a brokerage account offers promising returns (not guaranteed, but based on historical data) on funds that we've worked hard to earn. I'm sometimes fearful of the possibility of losing everything in a stock market crash.
I don't think either of us is truly at odds with the other person: my husband witnessed Helene and set to work setting up a battery backup system for our solar panels, an impressive feat and investment that falls more in line with my own risk-averse nature.
And I've never squashed his goals of investing for both short and long-term stability, even if, deep down, I want all our savings in high-yield savings accounts with FDIC protection.
In order to make these conversations civil and positive, we tend to follow three steps.
First, we each get to make the case for why this investment, and why right now.
I think some of the way that we both get over our anxieties about spending or saving well is that we want to be heard, so he hears me out when I want to construct an expensive greenhouse on our property to grow more food, and I hear him out when he identifies that our current ages merit a somewhat risk-tolerant strategy so that we can reap the benefits when the market jumps higher.
Frequently, this process of hearing each other out helps us find an in-between pretty organically, and finding an in-between is the second step. Sometimes, we realize that, for instance, we are too busy to take full advantage of a greenhouse right now and should table it for a year or two. However, maybe this is a good year to invest in a higher-speed home charger for our electric car. Because many of his goals are "invest as much as possible," it's usually possible to buy some portion of the physical items I want while still contributing to our investments.
When I'm advocating for a deeper emergency fund, housed in a high-yield savings account rather than a market-invested brokerage account, I typically ask that we contribute in a percentage-based way. If I ask, for instance, for a windfall to be split 30/70, he gets to invest 70% of the money toward higher yields, and I get 30% in a very secure account. It's not exactly what either of us would like, but it ultimately gives us some benefits of both risk-averse and risk-tolerant strategies.
Finally, any time we find a split that really feels aligned for us, we see if we can make it a rule for the future, the third step. No one loves having to reinvent the wheel every time new money conversations come up. When that 70/30 split worked well for us once, I've returned to it for later money decisions, and while it sometimes needs to be adapted, it lets us balance each of our needs without a long discussion. My husband, famously of few words, likes when we can keep the conversations a little shorter and get back to playing a board game or watching a silly TV show to relax.
When we hear each other out, find a useful middle ground, and operationalize the result for future use, we find ways to invest in both a more secure and a more growth-focused future, favoring methods that work well for both our risk tolerance levels.
© Callaghan O'Hare for The New York Times
TOKYO – When Chinese stocks lose a South Korea-sized sum in five months, Beijing has a problem. The US$2.4 trillion plunge in market value since May sits between Korea’s $2.25 trillion GDP and Canada’s $2.49 trillion. Many factors could explain Chinese shares entering bear market territory, but a major one is a protracted slump in […]
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The governor of the Bank of Portugal has called for a national consensus on tackling the country’s housing crisis, arguing that building more homes, expanding social housing and reducing bureaucracy
The post Bank of Portugal governor calls for more construction to tackle housing crisis appeared first on Portugal Resident.
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Big companies are still cutting jobs in 2026.
So far this year, dozens of major brands have laid off employees, continuing a trend of significant workforce reductions across a broad range of industries, including tech, media, finance, and retail.
While prominent brands continue to announce cuts, the broader economy shows that unemployment hasn't spiked. Economists frequently describe the environment as low-fire, low-hire.
The big change is AI.
Several companies, including Block, Coinbase, and Standard Chartered, have cited the impact of artificial intelligence as a key reason for the layoffs.
A World Economic Forum survey last year found that some 41% of companies worldwide expected to reduce their workforces in the next five years because of the rise of artificial intelligence. The survey also found that jobs in big data, fintech, and AI are expected to double by 2030.
Last year, Business Insider tracked layoffs at around 65 major companies, including Amazon, Meta, Paramount, and Starbucks. In 2026, we'll continue to track additional job cuts based on company announcements, WARN notices, and our own reporting.
Here are the companies with job cuts underway in 2026, listed in alphabetical order.
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Amazon said in January that it would eliminate around 16,000 corporate roles globally.
Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology, described the January move in a company memo as part of broader efforts to cut back on bureaucracy inside the company.
The cuts followed mass layoffs from October 2025, when the tech and retail giant shed 14,000 roles.
In May, Amazon's Selling Partner Services team slashed additional jobs as it continued to reshape its organization.
"Following a recent review, we've made the difficult decision to eliminate a relatively small number of roles in our Selling Partner Services team," a spokesperson told Business Insider.
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American Express took a $336 million restructuring charge as it plans to cut around 5% of its workforce, the company announced during its third-quarter earnings call.
It employed around 77,000 people by the end of 2025, meaning the layoffs could impact between 3,000 and 4,000 employees.
On the earnings call, the company also highlighted how AI has changed its internal structure.
"There's been a lot of talk about how companies are using AI to increase productivity, automate processes, and generally make their organizations more efficient," Stephen Squeri, Amex's CEO, said during an October earnings call. "We're using AI to do all of those things too."
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Angi, the popular contractor listing site once known as Angie's List, said in January that it was cutting around 350 jobs "to reduce operating expenses and optimize the organizational structure in support of long-term growth." The company also said it's making the cuts "in light of AI-driven efficiency improvements."
In a January 7 SEC filing, Angi said that the cuts would save between $70 million and $80 million in annual spending. The layoffs will cost the company between $22 million and $30 million, according to the filing.
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Atlassian, the enterprise software company and maker of Confluence, said on March 11 that it will be cutting about 10% of its workforce as it invests in AI to reshape its organization.
CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a statement that about 1,600 employees will be affected by the cuts.
"We fundamentally believe people and AI create the best outcomes. Our approach is not 'AI replaces people,'" Cannon-Brookes said. "But it would be disingenuous to pretend AI doesn't change the mix of skills we need or the number of roles required in certain areas. It does."
The company expects to incur $225 million and $236 million in restructuring charges, according to an SEC filing.
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Barclays, the British financial institution, disclosed plans to cut around 5% of its workforce.
Anna Cross, the Group Finance Director of Barclays, said on an October 22 earnings call that the company expects more than GBP 1 billion in efficiency savings in 2027, which will involve reducing its head count by 5,000 full-time employees.
Cross said that 60% of affected workers are related to "support functions, including fewer developers as AI makes our people more productive."
The company reported Q3 pretax profit of GBP 2.3 billion — about $3 billion — up 12% from the same quarter a year earlier.
Barclays CEO, C.S. Venkatakrishnan, said that the company is moving to "drive even greater cost efficiency through deep technological transformation, reducing the unit cost of product, manufacturing, service and innovation."
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British American Tobacco said it will cut 9,000 jobs by the end of the year, about one-fifth of its workforce. The cuts will not impact the US arm of its business.
"We are building a future-ready organisation that is more agile, cost disciplined and technology enabled," CEO Tadeu Marroco said in the statement.
The company, whose cigarette portfolio includes brands like Lucky Strike and Dunhill, has stepped up its push in recent years into smoke-free alternatives, such as nicotine pouches and vapes.
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Citi will cut more jobs this year as part of its plan to reduce its workforce by 10%, or 20,000 employees.
In a statement on January 13, the bank said that it will continue to reduce head count in 2026.
"These changes reflect adjustments we're making to ensure our staffing levels, locations and expertise align with current business needs," a spokesperson for Citi said.
The plan was detailed in the company's January 2024 earnings report and could save the bank as much as $2.5 billion.
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Cybersecurity company Cloudflare on May 7 said it plans to cut roughly 20% of its global workforce, affecting more than 1,100 employees.
In an internal memo, Cloudflare executives said the company's use of AI has climbed more than 600% over the past three months, and that the rapid shift has forced the company to reconsider its structure.
"We want to be clear that this decision is not a reflection of the individual work or talent of those leaving us," Cloudflare executives wrote in the May 7 memo. "Instead, we are reimagining every internal process, team, and role across the company."
The company's shares fell more than 14% in extended trading following the announcement.
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The CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, said in a letter to staff on May 5 that 14% of its staff would be cut, largely because of AI.
"AI is changing how we work. Over the past year, I've watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a team weeks," wrote. "The pace of what's possible with a small, focused team has changed dramatically, and it's accelerating every day."
Armstrong said this would mean fewer layers and faster decisions in the company. No pure managers, he said — all leaders will now be required to get stuck in and "get their hands dirty."
"AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we're reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era," he added.
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Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said in March that the company laid off 12% of its workforce, including "roles that do not adapt in our new world."
"Companies that move immediately and pair the best AI tools with top-performers will achieve a level of scale and precision that was previously impossible," Marszalek wrote in a post on X. "This is where we must go."
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Dell cut its workforce by 10% for the third year in a row, the company said in its annual filing with the SEC.
As of January 31, 2026, the company had 97,000 employees, down 11,000 from the same time last year. The decline includes both layoffs and attrition, Business Insider reported.
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eBay is set to eliminate about 800 jobs globally, making up 6% of its workforce. The company told Business Insider that it's taking steps to better align with its strategic priorities.
"We are grateful for the contributions of the employees impacted and are committed to supporting them with care and respect," a company spokesperson said in a statement.
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Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, said in March that it would lay off more than 1,000 people — about 20% of its workforce — as engagement with the game declined.
CEO Tim Sweeney said in a memo that the layoffs "aren't related to AI."
"To the extent it improves productivity, we want to have as many awesome developers developing great content and tech as we can," Sweeney said.
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Estée Lauder said in its May earnings report that it will deepen its previously announced cuts, which are now expected to affect up to 10,000 jobs.
More than two-thirds of the reductions are in cashier and demonstration roles at lower-performing retail and department stores.
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Etsy said August 5 that it is laying off about 220 employees, roughly 12% of its workforce.
"We will be saying goodbye to approximately 220 colleagues across the company, with most of the changes concentrated in Product & Engineering," the company's CEO, Kruti Patel Goyal, told staffers in a memo.
The company also reported its second-quarter financial results on Wednesday.
While Goyal's memo made no mention of AI or its potential threat to jobs, she said that the cuts were a preemptive move.
"The answer is that today's decisions aren't a reflection of this quarter or even this year, but of where Etsy needs to go next," she wrote.
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Expedia confirmed to Business Insider that it had laid off some employees on January 26 and had also posted new job openings. It's unclear how many of its workers were affected by the cuts.
"We are eliminating roles as well as opening some new roles as we remain disciplined about assessing the skills we need for the future," an Expedia Group spokesperson said in a statement. "We are also simplifying our structure and reducing organizational layers to move faster and with more accountability. These are not easy decisions, and we are grateful for the contributions of our colleagues who are impacted."
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The San Mateo, California-based software company said in its early May earnings report that it would cut 11% of its staff in the second quarter. The company had about 4,500 employees at the end of 2025.
The cuts aim "to streamline the Company's organizational efforts and product development process" and increase AI across the company, according to the filing.
On an earnings call, CEO Dennis Woodside said about half the company's code comes from AI.
"Like many other software companies, that is definitely changing how we build products, how fast we can build products, and the amount of people that we need to build products," he said.
The company's stock slumped 35% from May 2025 to May 2026.
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General Motors is cutting 600 salaried employees from its global IT division.
A spokesperson said the layoffs would enable it to "better position the company for the future," by ensuring GM has employees with expertise in AI-native development, data engineering, analytics, cloud engineering, prompt engineering, and AI workflows.
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On April 7, GoPro said it would lay off about 145 employees as it tries to cut operating costs and restructure operations.
The layoffs make up 23% of its global headcount of 631 employees, the camera maker said in a regulatory filing.
The cuts will start in the second quarter of the year and will largely be completed by the end of 2026. The restructuring is expected to result in a charge of $11.5 million to $15 million.
The company cut about 15% of its staff in August 2024 to cut costs.
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Groupon said on May 21 that it would cut up to 400 roles globally as part of a restructuring plan, according to a financial filing. It previously said it planned to rebuild as an "AI-native company."
The cuts are expected to happen by the end of the third quarter of 2026. Groupon is looking to generate $10 million to $12 million in gross savings in 2026.
"Up to half of this year's savings will be reinvested into AI infrastructure, talent density, and the tools and teams building the next version of the company," a spokesperson told Business Insider.
Groupon had 1,734 employees worldwide at the end of 2025, according to its annual report.
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Heineken is cutting 5,000 to 6,000 roles over the next two years to boost productivity and bring down costs, according to its latest full-year earnings report.
The company told Business Insider that the divisions and regions where the layoffs are due to take place are yet to be confirmed.
Heineken said in its 2025 report that it faced "subdued consumer sentiment" in the Americas, alongside a "challenging year" for brewers in Europe.
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Financial software company Intuit announced on May 20 that it would be cutting 17% of its full-time workforce.
The company shared a memo from CEO Sasan Goodarzi to employees that listed five reasons for the culling, including reducing management layers, focusing roles on "high impact work," and closing down two of its offices.
"These changes are a necessary evolution to reduce complexity and architect an organization that operates with the velocity required to fuel our growth engines," Goodarzi wrote in the memo, shared in a blog post on Intuit's website.
Laid-off employees in the US would receive 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks of pay for every year they have worked at Intuit.
The company said in a May 20 earnings report that restructuring costs from the layoffs would be about $300 million to $340 million.
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Consumer healthcare brand Kenvue, which produces Tylenol, plans to cut 3.5% of its staff. Kenvue had about 22,000 employees globally, per its latest annual report.
The company wrote in a mid-February SEC filing that its board aimed to reduce complexity and drive operational efficiencies.
The company's layoffs and restructuring efforts are expected to cost $250 million in 2026, per the filing.
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LinkedIn CEO Daniel Shapero told employees on May 13 that it was laying off employees, and those in affected roles would receive a calendar invite. The jobs included positions in the Microsoft-owned company's Global Business Organization, marketing, engineering, and product teams.
"We need to reinvent how we work, with agile teams focused on our highest priorities, and by shifting investments toward areas such as infrastructure to fulfill our mission and vision over the long term," Shapero said in the memo.
Shapero also said LinkedIn would "scale back" investments in areas like marketing campaigns, customer events, and underutilized office space.
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The athleisure giant said it laid off 100 part-time employees to "strengthen the business." The affected roles are in the company's North American contact center.
"After careful consideration, we have made the decision to transition our North America GEC to a full-time employee staffing model. As a result, approximately 100 part-time positions in our GEC have been impacted," a Lululemon spokesperson said.
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Meta began laying off employees across multiple teams on March 25, including Reality Labs, Facebook, recruiting, sales, and global operations.
The cuts come as the company ramps up spending on AI infrastructure and talent, alongside broader cost-cutting efforts. Meta said the changes are part of ongoing restructuring to better align teams with company goals, while exploring other roles for affected employees where possible.
Meta first began preparing to slash jobs within its Reality Labs division, the unit responsible for Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse ambitions, in January, three people familiar with the matter told Business Insider at the time.
Two employees said that teams working on virtual reality headsets and Horizon Worlds, the company's VR social network, would be disproportionately affected.
Meta has shifted away from virtual reality in recent years in favor of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on beefing up its AI capabilities.
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Nike is cutting roughly 1,400 jobs, mostly from tech, as part of a broader push to streamline operations and revive growth.
In a memo to staff on April 23 obtained by Business Insider, Chief Operating Officer Venkatesh Alagirisamy said the layoffs are tied to the company's "win now" turnaround plan, which focuses on improving culture, product, marketing, marketplace strategy, and in-person retail. He described the effort as entering its "final stretch."
This is Nike's second layoff in 2026. Nike said on January 26 that it planned to lay off 775 employees across Tennessee and Mississippi, citing efforts to "streamline" its distribution center operations.
"We are sharpening our supply chain footprint, accelerating the use of advanced technology and automation, and investing in the skills our teams need for the future," Nike said in a statement to Business Insider.
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Oracle's workforce shrank by roughly 21,000 employees, or 13%, over the past year, bringing its headcount to 141,000 as of May 31, according to a 10-K filing released on June 22.
"The adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations have resulted, and may continue to result, in reductions to our workforce," Oracle wrote in the filing.
Oracle also disclosed that restructuring costs surged in fiscal 2026. The company spent $1.84 billion on severance and other exit costs, up from $374 million in the prior year.
The reduction in workforce comes as Oracle continues to invest heavily in AI infrastructure.
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Papa Johns said it is laying off 7% of its corporate staff amid a broader restructuring.
The pizza chain said it will also close 300 locations in North America through 2027, starting with 200 this year.
"Optimizing our restaurant portfolio and strategically closing underperforming restaurants are among the most impactful actions we can take to improve restaurant profitability and fleet health," Papa Johns CFO Ravi Thanawala said during the company's fourth quarter earnings call on February 26.
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Patreon announced layoffs in July.
The creator economy company is laying off 93 employees — roughly 20% of the company — per a memo its CEO, Jack Conte, shared publicly.
Conte wrote that the "market in which we operate has undergone profound change over the last 6 months," and that Patreon needs to cut costs to "remain a stable, dependable rock for our creators."
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Pinterest announced a global restructuring plan that includes layoffs affecting less than 15% of its workforce, according to a January securities filing. The cuts come with reductions in office space.
"We are making organizational changes to further deliver on our AI-forward strategy, which includes hiring AI-proficient talent," a Pinterest spokesperson said.
"As a result, we've made the difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our team members. We are grateful for their service and supporting them with separation packages and benefits," they added.
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Saks Global, the beleaguered parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman, conducted several rounds of layoffs as it closed stores and trimmed its corporate staff
In April, the company cut about 16% of its corporate staff, representing less than 4% of its total workforce.
"Following the strategic actions we've taken to secure long-term financial stability, sharpen our focus on luxury and full-price selling, optimize our operational footprint, and exit non-core businesses, we are right-sizing our corporate organization to align with our go-forward strategy," a Saks spokesperson told Business Insider.
The cuts followed Saks's closure of dozens of stores and fulfillment centers in the first quarter, resulting in layoffs.
Saks filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January.
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Sprout Social — a social media management program — announced on July 15 that it will cut 260 jobs, or about 20% of its workforce.
In a letter about the reduction in force, CEO Ryan Barretto said the cuts were due to rapid industry changes.
"This decision is not a reflection of their talent or commitment," Barrett said. "We made this decision because we believe it was the right one for Sprout's future. Our industry, and software more broadly, is changing quickly, and the way companies need to operate and invest has changed with it."
Affected staff will be offered a 12-week severance package, plus an additional week of pay for every year of tenure, fully-paid health benefits for six months, and a cash payment equal to the value of their equity shares that would have vested in the next 90 days.
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Standard Chartered plans to cut 15% of corporate function roles over the next four years, the company said on May 19.
The bank, headquartered in London, credited AI as a driver for the reductions.
"It is not cost-cutting, but it is replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and the investment capital that we are putting in," CEO Bill Winters said in a media briefing, Reuters reported.
The company added in a statement: "We are combining the best human talent with AI, investing to support our people into higher-value roles."
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T-Mobile cut some staff in early 2026, though the scope of the layoffs is unclear. Some workers posted on LinkedIn saying they'd been affected by the changes in January.
"As the next step in our evolution, we're making some changes while continuing to hire to ensure we have the right focus, structure, and momentum to keep changing the industry through innovation and our long-standing focus on customers," T-Mobile told Business Insider in a statement.
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Tailwind, a popular web tool, said it cut three of its four engineers in January, citing an AI-driven decline in revenue.
"75% of the people on our engineering team lost their jobs here yesterday because of the brutal impact AI has had on our business," CEO Adam Wathan wrote in a GitHub comment on January 6 that made waves in the tech community.
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Target confirmed to Business Insider in February that it would cut 100 district office roles and 400 supply chain positions. It plans to invest instead in additional labor hours at stores to improve the shopping experience and return to growth.
The store improvement effort is a signature priority of the retailer's new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, who started on February 1.
In November, Fiddelke said the company intends to invest an additional $1 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, an increase of 25% from 2025.
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TikTok is laying off 250 employees and closing an office in Nashville, according to documents filed with the Department of Labor and Workforce Development in Tennessee.
A spokesperson for TikTok US Data Security, a joint venture established in January 2026 to oversee TikTok's US operations, said closing the office will "streamline our operations and better align our teams for long-term growth."
The Nashville office will close in October, according to the documents.
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UPS CEO Brian Dykes told analysts during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call that the company plans to reduce its operational workforce by 30,000 in 2026.
"This will be accomplished through attrition, and we expect to offer a second voluntary separation program for full-time drivers," Dykes said.
He told analysts that the company has identified 24 buildings for closure in the first half of 2026 and will continue to evaluate additional buildings for closure.
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Verizon said in July that it would transition 274 retail stores into franchise locations as part of ongoing changes at the telecom giant.
The company said about 2,500 retail workers and 500 corporate roles would be cut, and that typically around 70% of store employees accept jobs under the new franchisees.
The move comes two months after Verizon laid off several hundred corporate employees, or about 1% of its head count, as the company reallocates workers across its overall business.
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Volvo's CEO, Håkan Samuelsson, said the luxury automaker is facing "a very tough environment with strong external challenges," including a fierce Chinese car market, US tariffs, and continued high-priced investments in a new lineup of electric vehicles.
The company said it is cutting 2,500 employees globally — including 2,000 in Sweden — to save around $530 million in response to those headwinds.
Volvo is also ending consultant contracts and planning some targeted employee exits, the company said in a press release.
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Walmart told employees on May 12 that it would cut or relocate about 1,000 corporate jobs to address redundancies and duplicate roles.
Suresh Kumar, Walmart's chief technology and development officer, and Daniel Danker, executive vice president of AI acceleration, product, and design, announced the changes in a memo.
"We've made changes to simplify how the work is organized, make ownership clearer, and better align roles to the work and skills we need going forward," the memo said.
The move follows Walmart's May 2025 decision to cut 1,500 corporate roles as part of an effort to "remove layers and complexity."
The company employed 2.1 million people as of January.
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Logistics software maker Wisetech is cutting 2,000 jobs, or 30% of its staff, citing AI-driven efficiency gains.
In a conference call on February 25, CEO Zubin Appoo embraced AI and said that it means more productivity, in less time, and from fewer employees. The Sydney-based company employed about 7,000 people, according to its annual report released in October.
"I am prepared to say this clearly: the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over," Appoo said. AI is "unlocking levels of efficiency gains across WiseTech that were previously out of reach."
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Wix, which provides website-building software, is reducing its workforce by 20%, the CEO told employees in a memo published on X on May 28.
The Israel-headquartered company employs about 5,300 workers.
CEO Avishai Abrahami cited the "fast evolution of AI capabilities" as a reason for the cuts and said the company needed to become a "faster, leaner, and flatter organization."
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Workday is cutting about 400 jobs, and said on February 4 that the move will help the enterprise software company redirect resources toward priority areas.
The layoffs will primarily affect customer-facing roles that are "non-revenue generating," Workday said in a regulatory filing.
The cuts represent roughly 2% of its workforce and are expected to result in about $135 million in charges in the fiscal fourth quarter, which ended in January.
Workday announced a larger round of layoffs about a year ago, citing the need to invest more heavily in strategic areas such as AI. The company reported about 20,600 employees as of late October.
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Global payment technology company Visa confirmed to Business Insider that it's cutting about 2,600 jobs.
That's roughly 7% of the company's employee footprint.
"To capture the opportunities ahead and best position Visa to lead this transformation, we must continue evolving how we work," CEO Ryan McInerney wrote to staff in an internal memo, according to Bloomberg. "AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution and shape the way work gets done at Visa."
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Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman announced on August 4 that the company was cutting 500 employees as part of "organizational changes."
As of December, Zillow had around 7,000 employees, so the changes are affecting about 7% of its workforce.
"These changes are about ensuring we have a disciplined cost structure and getting more efficient, with the right people in the right positions," Wacksman said in a blog post.
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Dropbox announced on October 28 that it is cutting roughly 200 roles, or 9% of its global workforce.
"Delivering on that strategy requires concentrating our resources on the priorities that will have the greatest potential for customer impact and growth," Dropbox co-CEO Ashraf Alkarmi wrote in an email to employees.
Alkarmi said while Dropbox was profitable, it had to make "hard choices."
The affected roles are in the company's Engineering, Product, Design, and G&A teams. Alkarmi also wrote in the email that Dropbox's chief technology officer, Ali Dasdan, would be spending down.
A report released on Wednesday warns that the investment boom in artificial intelligence is a financial bubble that is “primed to pop” and harm working-class Americans if lawmakers don’t take concrete steps to shield them from the damage. The report, produced by Open Markets Institute and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, warns that Big […]
The post Report says ‘circular financing’ shows AI bubble ‘primed to pop’ appeared first on Asia Times.
European prosecutors carried out searches at the European Parliament’s offices in Brussels and Strasbourg on Wednesday, 21 October, as part of an investigation into alleged financial irregularities involving the former Identity and Democracy (ID) parliamentary group.
The investigation concerns approximately €4.33 million in European Union funds that were allegedly improperly spent during the 2019–2024 parliamentary term. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed that searches had taken place in connection with an ongoing inquiry into the use of EU funds by a former parliamentary group.
The premises searched are now occupied by Patriots for Europe, the European Parliament’s third-largest political group, which includes France’s National Rally, Hungary’s Fidesz, Italy’s Lega and Spain’s Vox. Patriots for Europe insists that it has no legal continuity with Identity and Democracy and denies being involved in the investigation.
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office opened its investigation in July 2025 following concerns identified by the European Parliament’s financial administration about expenditure incurred by Identity and Democracy.
The former group, which dissolved following the 2024 European elections, included representatives of France’s National Rally, Italy’s Lega and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.
According to details of the parliamentary financial examination subsequently reported in France, investigators are examining approximately €3.6 million in contracts awarded to external service providers, including businesses with political connections to parties represented within the former group.
The financial examination also identified more than €700,000 in donations to organisations whose activities were allegedly unrelated to the parliamentary group’s official functions.
The authorities are examining whether parliamentary resources were used in accordance with EU financial rules, including restrictions on using public money for national party-political activities.
These are allegations under investigation, not criminal findings. The EPPO has not announced convictions arising from the current inquiry, and the individuals and organisations concerned retain the presumption of innocence.
Earlier investigative measures were conducted in France, Belgium, Spain and Italy in June 2026. Wednesday’s searches mark a further stage in the proceedings.
The investigation has opened a separate dispute over whether Patriots for Europe could be required to repay money allegedly misspent by its predecessor.
Identity and Democracy ceased to exist after the 2024 elections. Several parties previously represented in the group subsequently joined Patriots for Europe, a new parliamentary formation that also brought together Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz and Spain’s Vox.
Patriots for Europe maintains that the two groups are legally separate. Its representatives argue that the dissolution of Identity and Democracy ended that group’s institutional existence and that the present parliamentary organisation is not responsible for its predecessor’s financial affairs.
However, the European Parliament’s budgetary authorities have examined whether responsibility for outstanding liabilities can pass to a successor group.
An opinion approved by the Parliament’s Budgetary Control Committee in September considered the circumstances in which continuity between parliamentary groups might establish financial responsibility.
Such an assessment may consider whether members, administrative personnel, operational resources and other assets were transferred from one organisation to another.
The outcome could determine whether the current group is exposed to potential repayment demands, irrespective of whether its present members were personally involved in the expenditure under investigation.
No final determination of such liability has been established through Wednesday’s searches.
The searches come at a time when Patriots for Europe has become a major political force within the European Parliament.
Its member parties have challenged EU policy on immigration, economic regulation and the distribution of powers between Brussels and national governments. National Rally and Fidesz are also influential actors in the domestic politics of France and Hungary respectively.
An investigation involving their parliamentary organisation is therefore likely to attract scrutiny beyond the immediate financial questions.
Nevertheless, the political influence of the group and the criminal investigation must be considered separately. The presence of prosecutors at parliamentary premises does not establish wrongdoing by the current group’s MEPs.
The case also raises broader questions about financial accountability within the Parliament, particularly when a political group dissolves following an election and its members establish a new organisation.
Unlike national political parties, European parliamentary groups receive funding specifically to support their legislative, administrative and political work inside the institution.
Those resources are subject to financial controls intended to prevent their diversion into activities that should be funded by national parties or other organisations.
The EPPO is responsible for investigating and prosecuting offences affecting the European Union’s financial interests. It operates independently of national governments and EU political institutions.
The European Parliament has confirmed its cooperation with the authorities but has declined to comment on the substance of the continuing investigation.
Prosecutors must now assess the evidence obtained during the searches alongside financial records and material collected during previous investigative measures.
Any decision to bring criminal proceedings would depend on the evidence available and the relevant national and European legal requirements.
Separately, the Parliament will have to establish whether any recoverable funds are owed by the former group and, if so, which organisation is legally responsible for repayment.
For Patriots for Europe, the immediate issue is not only the progress of the criminal inquiry but whether the financial arrangements of a dissolved parliamentary group can create obligations for its successor.
Portugal’s housing shortage is being driven largely by a sharp decline in private construction, according to Economy and Territorial Cohesion Minister Manuel Castro Almeida, who has called on local authorities
The post Is a new construction shortage fueling Portugal’s housing crisis? appeared first on Portugal Resident.
On Monday, a group of students from the University of Chicago stood outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange—one of the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplaces—and called for the repeal of an obscure 1958 law that bans onions as futures products traded on U.S. exchanges.
Attracting an audience with a humorous jingle and amusing signs that included "Onions Deserve a Future," "Honk If You Want Free Onions," "Hot Girls Hedge Onions," and "Free Markets Feed Families," the student group, named For Our Futures, has a simple platform: a repeal of the 1958 Onion Futures Act, which prohibits anyone from trading in onion futures on commodity exchanges. (The law was amended in 2010 to ban motion picture box office receipts from being traded on commodity exchanges.) The viral campaign drew enough attention that Mike Selig—chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a proponent of expanding the list of commodities traded on futures markets—was asked about the law in a media appearance.
American farmers produce about 6.75 billion pounds of onions a year, according to the National Onion Association, an industry trade group. While peers who grow cotton, wheat, corn, and soybeans can hedge against price swings by trading futures contracts, onion farmers have no such recourse under federal law. But, as the Agriculture Department's daily National Potato and Onion Report shows, onion prices are highly volatile and subject to wild swings, making them an ideal market for futures trading.
In its latest report, released Monday, the agency shows that onion prices have roughly doubled since this time last year. If onion futures contracts were legal, farmers could rely on market expectations instead of planting crops based on last year's prices. It would also let buyers potentially cut costs by locking in lower prices to protect against spikes. Trading onion futures contracts would give the industry a useful price-discovery tool, one that the student group aptly notes is "crucial for price stability and for hedging risks associated with weather and market fluctuations."
It's not For Our Futures' first time trying this gambit. The student group staged similar protests at college campuses in April and May, armed with bags of raw onions to entice passersby into signing their petition to legalize onion futures. The students' crusade might be comical, but after a recent Gallup poll found that 57 percent of Americans age 18–34 have a positive image of socialism, it's encouraging to see college-age students stand up for free markets.
A protest over onions sounds absurd, but it's a viral reminder to others in that age cohort of how far governments can go when given the slightest leeway to regulate an industry.
Instead of relying on outdated price points when planning future harvests, American onion producers could use resources like futures contracts that offer real-time market signals. All that would require—as the college kids state—is for federal lawmakers to "let the free market reign supreme."
The post You Can Trade Contracts on Elections, but Not on Onions. These College Students Want To Fix That. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
In 2022, I helped push through the international agreement to protect biodiversity. Wars and economic pressures can make nature seem like a ‘nice-to-have’. But it is a critical asset, and Cop17 must deliver real action
When I was five, property developers came to cut down the woods behind my home in La Tuque, Quebec. My mother encouraged me to climb one of the trees in protest, then told the developers, straight-faced, that there was nothing she could do when they asked her to get me down. A few days later, the tree was cut down anyway.
I thought about that tree in the early hours of a freezing Montreal morning in December 2022, as the gavel came down on a global agreement between nearly 200 countries to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030. I thought about how important nature is for our health, our food security and our economies, but also how much passion there is around protecting it, and how it has the power to inspire people all around the world.
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© Photograph: COP17
© Photograph: COP17
© Photograph: COP17
I am writing this from Singapore, where the haze is back. For the uninitiated, smoke from fires several hundred kilometres away drifts over the island, the skyline turns the color of weak tea and the whole city checks its air-quality app with a devotion normally reserved for share prices. Nothing here is on fire. It […]
The post For Seoul and Taipei markets, blue skies above the haze appeared first on Asia Times.
India’s largest initial public offering (IPO) opens October 21, and investors in Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong are being asked a simple question: What is a Jio customer’s monthly bill worth? Jio Platforms, the Reliance-owned mobile carrier with some 524 million India-based customers, is selling 270 million new shares at 1,065 to 1,119 rupees each […]
The post Jio’s IPO seeks a tech multiple for old-school mobile business appeared first on Asia Times.
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