The week in business: Coben on Netflix, Biden's gig worker rule

Most Harlan Coben novels-turned-TV-series shoot to the top of Netflix’s chart upon release, and the latest adaptation is no different. The eight-episode series derived from the American thriller writer’s eponymous 2016 American novel Fool Me Once catapulted to the number one spot among Netflix TV series, according to Jan. 8 data from ratings site FlixPatrol. - Ananya Bhattacharya Read More

The US Department of Labor (DOL) on Tuesday (Jan. 9) finalized a new rule that will make it more difficult for employers to classify their workers as independent contractors. The move means that millions of working Americans could gain the right to overtime pay, insurance benefits, and protections for unionization efforts. - Laura Bratton Read More

3M will freeze its US pension plans for non-union US employees in five years. The move, effective Dec. 31, 2028, applies to both 3M and its new healthcare spinoff, Solventum, the company said on Jan. 8. - Ananya Bhattacharya Read More

After the pandemic began, prices for everything started going up—and quickly. Covid-19 may have killed workers, depressed economic growth, and thrown the entire planet into an existential crisis, but vaccines for the virus may as well have been a shot in the arm for global spending. People wanted to start buying stuff again, and they had the money to do so—but jammed-up supply chains and shortages of raw materials meant that there was a mad scramble for whatever could be cobbled together and shipped out the door. Hence: US inflation, which peaked at a 8.9% year-over-year leap in June 2022. - Melvin Backman Read More

It’s a great time to be in the US labor force, but workers in certain cities are benefiting more than others. Among larger metropolitan areas with at least 1 million residents, Jacksonville, Florida; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Las Vegas, Nevada saw the greatest positive changes in employment from November 2022 through 2023, according to a report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released on Monday (Jan. 8). - Laura Bratton Read More

A growing diplomatic rift between India and its closest neighbor, the Maldives, could change how Indian beach-lovers travel in 2024. When Indian prime minister Narendra Modi recently visited Lakshadweep—the archipelago of 36 islands that’s his country’s smallest union territory—as an alternative to the Maldives, a handful of Maldivian ministers mocked his trip, making “anti-India” comments about uncleanliness, smelly rooms, and open defecation. - Ananya Bhattacharya Read More

One of the hottest brands on Wall Street is…Abercrombie & Fitch? The mall brand, which has contended with a #MeToo reckoning, the ongoing slow death of the mall, and the rise of fast fashion, among other challenges, saw its best annual stock performance ever last year. - Melvin Backman Read More

It is the irony of our new economic age. Globalization brought with it elongated supply chains, as manufacturing and production were moved across oceans and continents. And now, a retreat from unrestrained offshoring (a trend some refer to as deglobalization or regionalization) appears to be making supply chains even longer. - Mary Hui Read More

PepsiCo is insisting that it was the one who initiated an inflation-fueled contretemps with French grocery giant Carrefour, not the other way around. Though Carrefour said last week that it had decided to pull Pepsi products off its shelves in France, Italy, Spain, and Belgium because they were getting too expensive too quickly, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday (Jan. 8) that Pepsi had decided to stop. - Melvin Backman Read More

In 2022, the world learned the word for what you get when the lines between the real world and the internet blur: the metaverse. By 2023, a lot of people were even able to wrap their heads around the concept. But as 2024 gets underway, the metaverse economy as it has been imagined hasn’t taken off. - Morgan Haefner Read More