1 Old techies can’t get hired (The New York Times) Silicon Valley may be booming again, but times are still tough for the 200 out-of-work professionals who crowd into Sunnyvale’s City Hall every Thursday morning. Most of them hold advanced degrees in engineering and have more than a decade of experience in the technology sector. They are members of ProMatch, a government-financed support group and “interactive career resource center” for educated older workers who have suddenly, and usually involuntarily, found themselves on the job market. Most have been out of work for months. While Web-based companies like Facebook and Google are scouring the world for new talent to hire, older technology workers often find that their skills are no longer valued. Part of the problem, analysts said, is that many of the companies shedding jobs are technology manufacturers, while most of the companies that are hiring are Internet-based.
Cisco Systems, a maker of computer networking equipment that is Santa Clara County’s largest private employer, laid off 1,331 workers last year. The semiconductor sector, which used to be the lifeblood of the South Bay’s economy, has lost 4,600 jobs since 2008. “The pace of change is just breathtaking,” said Russell Hancock, president and chief executive of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a research group backed by businesses and local governments. “We’ve entered a strange new world. There are opportunities, but they are different. You have to be edgy and supercreative.”
2 UN’s suggestions for a better world (BBC) Growing inequality, environmental decline and "teetering" economies mean the world must change the way it does business, a UN report concludes. Health and education must improve, it says. Subsidies on fossil fuels should end, and governments must look beyond the standard economic indicator of GDP. The High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability was established in 2010 by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. world community," she said.
3 Americans’ taste for business (BBC) Tom Ryan is just your typical, easy-going American entrepreneur - he wants to take over the world. Mr Ryan is founder of restaurant chain Smashburger, one of the fastest-growing companies in the US. From just one outlet in Denver in 2007, it now has more than 150 branches nationwide, and will later this year open its first foreign sites in Kuwait, Canada and Costa Rica. Mr Ryan, a restaurant industry veteran, says: "Everyone said the burger industry in the US was too crowded for a new entry, but I was sure there was a place for a new chain offering much higher quality than the established players." Smashburger is far from unique in the US. The likes of Google, Twitter and Facebook may not make hamburgers, but all three were also just start-up businesses not too many years ago. Facebook was only established in 2004, and Twitter was not set up until 2006.
Facebook was first started in a university dormitory, and Google's early days were based in a garage. But as the US continues to produce a wealth of start-up companies that quickly grow to dominate their marketplaces, what are the reasons behind America's continuing entrepreneurial success - and can they be copied? Mr Ries says that when it comes to supporting entrepreneurship, the US has some key advantages over Europe and other parts of the world. "There are definitely cultural factors in the US's favour, perhaps most importantly a willingness to tolerate failure," he says. "In Europe if you fail in business you are going to find it very difficult to borrow money the next time around, but in the US it is almost seen as a useful experience to have gone through." Mr Ries adds that this all makes American entrepreneurs more willing to take risks. "On top of this, some European countries have very high personal liability levels for entrepreneurs, which is a terrible mistake," he says.
4 Investigation into the death of nun Valsa John Malamel last year in Jharkhand (Wall Street Journal) The story of Sister Valsa’s death is one of greed, lust, friendship, betrayal, faith, and brutality. It is set against the backdrop of a conflict between two major forces shaping India today: Industrialization and the preservation of traditional ways of life.
5 The next 4 billion (Wall Street Journal) First there was the bottom of the pyramid. And now there’s the global emerging middle class, or as consulting firm PwC puts it, the “Next 4 Billion.” Seeing the slowdown in the developed economies, companies with global businesses should creates goods and services for the emerging middle class across the developing world to grow their business, PwC says. PwC defines the “Next 4 Billion” as countries that have an average annual per capita income that ranges between $1,000 and $4,000, and that, together, are home to four billion people – or more than half of the current global population of 7 billion. Apart from India and China, this group includes Indonesia and countries in Latin America and Africa.
Globally, about 2.3 billion people are currently in this market segment and it’s only going to get bigger, thanks to high birth rates and above-average economic growth in many countries in the group. The report says that it will represent a combined annual market in excess of $6 trillion by 2021. Although income levels in this group are still pretty low—In India, for instance, incomes in this group range from $1.75 to $5 per day—collectively, these consumers have a large purchasing power.
6 Women seen as savvier car buyers (Wall Street Journal) When it comes to buying or leasing a car, men can learn a lesson or two from their female counterparts. Women, according to recent studies, are more informed and level-headed than men in the vehicle showroom — a place long-considered an arena for gladiatorial gamesmanship. “Men tend to rely on what is assumed they know and what they believe they know,” said Sergio Stiberman, chief executive and founder of LeaseTrader.com. “When women approach car shopping, they believe in the importance of asking all the necessary questions, even if they think they might know the answers,” he said. Many men revel in the gamesmanship of car buying that many women just aren’t interested in.
“Men get all excited about going out to buy a car and talk about how they’re going to one-up the salesmen and get a great deal,” said Anne Fleming, president of Women-drivers.com, a consumer ratings site. “I’ve never heard or seen any comments from women like that.” Women do more research and, as a group, are considerably more pragmatic in their vehicle choices. They tend to be more concerned about safety issues and reliability than horse power and acceleration. Nearly 74% of men ranked aesthetics a major issue, at No. 3, compared with just 46% of women — dead last among the top nine concerns — who did.
7 India realty firms start mega asset sales (Mint) Real estate companies across cities, pushed into a corner, have kicked off plans on an unprecedented scale to sell assets so they can trim their bulging debt and generate cash flows. About a dozen large developers, including the country’s top realty firm, DLF Ltd, are raising about Rs150bn by monetizing their assets, according to estimates by Mint. Real estate analysts say that while the rush to sell assets resembles what transpired after the slowdown of 2008, this time it is more widespread. Earlier, it was mostly DLF and Unitech Ltd that wanted to exit largely non-core assets in non-prime markets, but now even mid-size builders are trying to sell assets they don’t want to develop immediately.
DLF, which had a debt of Rs 225bn at the end of September, raised Rs 35bn by selling non-core assets in the first two quarters of this financial year. DLF’s plan is to raise about Rs 100bn through this route over the next few years, Mint reported in January.
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