HEADLINES IN THE SPOTLIGHT
BIG JOB GROWTH FOR ECONOMY, BUT SME’S STILL A STRUGGLE TO FIND WORKERS The latest nonfarm payrolls report shows a labor market nearing a recovery to pre-pandemic levels, but small business owners across the U.S. and even Canada say that finding and keeping qualified employ - ees remains one of their biggest challenges. February job growth posting its biggest monthly gain since July, with nonfarm payrolls for the month rising by 678,000 and the unemployment rate at 3.8%, its lowest level since before the pandemic, according to reports from the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2021, 6.7 million jobs were added in the U.S. the largest single-year gain in American history. However, the job market is still about a million workers short of where it was pre-pandemic. Small Businesses are seeing most of this labor struggle as companies with 500 or more workers added 552,000 positions, while those with fewer than 50 employees recorded a loss of 96,000 employees during the month. Small businesses continue to struggle to find quali - fied people, almost a third saying they have positions that have been open for at least three months. Over three quarters of the small businesses with more than 50 employees say they expect turnover to likely be a problem for their business six months from now.
ELON MUSK MAKES $43 BILLION UNSOLICITED BID FOR TWITTER
APPLE WORKING ON IPHONE SUBSCRIPTION FOR POSSIBLE LAUNCH THIS YEAR
REDESIGNED MODERNA COVID VACCINE STRONGER IMMUNITY AGAINST OMICRON
Billionaire entrepreneur, investor, and business magnate Elon Musk offered to take Twitter Inc. private in a deal valued at $43 billion, saying he’s the person who can unlock the “extraordinary potential” of a communication platform used daily by more than 200 million people. Musk has said that he is willing to pay $54.20 USD per share in cash, 38% above the price on April 1, the last trading day before Musk went public with his stake. The social media company’s shares saw little change on the new that show signs there’s skepticism that one of the platform’s most outspoken users and critics of the current board will succeed in his takeover attempt. Musk, 50, announced the proposed deal in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, after turning down the chance to take a board seat at the company. Musk, who also controls Tesla Inc., first disclosed a stake of about 9% on April 4, making him the largest individual investor. Tesla shares fell about 3% on concern that the attempt to acquire Twitter will be a distraction for Musk.
It has been said that Apple is preparing a hardware subscription service for iPhones that could launch as soon as the end of this year. The service would allow customers to buy an iPhone through monthly payments, similar to how users cur- rently subscribe to iCloud, but Apple declined to comment on this at this time. The move would represent the culmination of a longtime Apple investors desire for the company to sell its hardware as a subscription. Doing so would boost recurring revenue and could lead to an increase in the stock price. Analysts have long been wary that Apple’s prodigious hardware sales are a “hits business” and believe that increasing predictable subscription revenue could prompt investors to value Apple more highly. Apple already offers several methods to pay for iPhones on a monthly basis, including the iPhone Upgrade Program, which bundles iPhones with a warranty and free upgrades for a monthly fee, and financing with the Apple Card.
Moderna released clinical data demonstrating that a new version of its Covid-19 vaccine that targets several mutations produced a stronger immune response against the major virus variants, including omicron and delta, than the company’s current shots on the market. The biotech company’s redesigned vaccine targets nine mutations found in the beta Covid variant, as well as the original strain of the virus that first emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019. Four of the mutations targeted by the updated vaccine are shared with omicron. Moderna and Pfizer are developing new shots that target multiple virus variants in the hope of producing shots that provide longer-lasting protec- tion against infection. The current vaccines were developed to recognize the spike protein, which the virus uses to invade human cells, of the Wuhan strain of Covid. The more the spike protein has evolved, the less likely the antibod- ies produced by the vaccine are able to recognize the virus and fight it, reducing the efficacy of the shots as a result. Two doses of the original vaccines still provide strong protection against hospitalization, though effectiveness against severe illness has also dropped. Third shots of the current vaccine also boost protec- tion against infection and hospitalization.
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MARCH/APRIL 2022 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • MARCH/APRIL 2022
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