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Recent Editions
Human Times
North America
A growing number of Wall Street economists and analysts are questioning the reliability of the latest U.S. employment report after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Thursday that the leisure and hospitality sector lost 61,000 jobs in June, despite the economic boost expected from the FIFA World Cup. Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group, described the data as "misleading" and said it should be disregarded, arguing there was "zero chance" the hospitality industry shed jobs while the U.S. hosted one of the world's largest sporting events. Similar concerns were raised by economists at Pimco, RSM, UBS, and EY-Parthenon, who pointed to the sector's reported losses as inconsistent with broader economic activity. Bank of America data showed card spending increased 5.4% year over year during the tournament's group stage, with spending by visitors rising 17.4%, suggesting stronger demand for hotels, restaurants, and entertainment. Analysts said the broader labor market still appears to reflect cautious hiring rather than widespread layoffs, and some suggested that, excluding the unexpected hospitality decline, the employment data would have indicated a steadier trend in job growth.
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Human Times
UK
Former John Lewis chair Sir Charlie Mayfield has said that tackling unemployment linked to long-term illness will unlock economic growth that's "hiding in plain sight." More than 250 of the UK's biggest employers have signed up to his Get Britain Working taskforce, which aims to prevent people dropping out of work due to ill-health and encourage those signed off to return to the workplace. The participating companies will track sickness absence, return-to-work outcomes, and disability participation, which the government said would make workplace health performance visible for the first time. Mayfield said: "I can't tell you how many people I've met who said: 'I was signed off work for three months, or six months, and I never had any contact with my employer at all.' "That's not because the employer is a bad person. It's because we've got a situation at the minute where people don't talk to each other when they really need to." He said his plans could help cut the government's welfare bill. "Fixing these problems at the fundamental level, could make a really big contribution to getting this economy working better - for employers, for employees, for the taxpayer, for all of us."
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Human Times
Europe
Some 1.2m unauthorised immigrants have applied for legal status in Spain under an amnesty programme promoted by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s leftwing government, more than double the estimated number. A total of 1,174,978 applications were submitted between mid-April and June 30 when the window closed, Secretary of State for Migration Pilar Cancela said. Latin America accounted for 67% of the submissions; African nationalities followed with 22.9%. “Without immigration, Spain would lose 19% of its GDP by 2050,” Sanchez said. “And what does that mean in business terms? It means, for example, that 90,000 bars would have to close, that 50,000 primary and secondary classrooms would find themselves without students, and that around 220,000 farms would disappear.” Without immigration, he added, Spain would be “poorer, emptier, weaker and without the resources to fund its welfare state . . . The only decent thing to do is extend a hand, not turn our backs on immigration.”
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Human Times
Middle East
A preliminary report from the UN's Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, which has been described as the first global independent assessment of AI's risks and opportunities, has said developments in the technology are outpacing scientific understanding and government policy, and there are no guarantees that it will not cause catastrophic harm. "AI capabilities are outpacing both scientific understanding and governments’ ability to adapt," said Yoshua Bengio, co-chair of the panel. "With growing evidence of deceptive AI behaviour, science currently cannot guarantee that as capabilities continue to increase, AI will not cause catastrophic harm, either on its own or due to malicious users." AI's task complexity is doubling every four to seven months, potentially allowing systems to complete work that takes humans days or weeks, the report notes.
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