1 To save Swiss franc, a negative interest rate (Angela
Monaghan in The Guardian) Switzerland is to charge its banks to park cash with
its central bank in a bid to weaken its currency which has strengthened as a
result of the crisis in Russia. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) surprised markets
on Thursday morning as it announced it was to impose a negative interest rate
of -0.25% on commercial bank deposits from 22 January, in order to stem the
rise of the Swiss franc against the euro.
Investors have piled into the Swiss franc as a safe
haven currency as the Russian rouble has plummeted in response to falling oil
prices and a looming recession next year. The hope in Switzerland is that a
negative deposit rate will discourage investors from buying Swiss franc
investments, easing the rise of the currency.
Thomas Jordan, chairman of the SNB’s governing
board, said the central bank was obliged to intervene to ensure its target of a
minimum exchange rate of 1.20 Swiss francs per euro was met. A weaker currency
will make Swiss exports cheaper abroad, and imports more expensive.
Francois Letondu, economist at HSBC, said the
central bank’s decision should eventually help a rebound of inflation –
currently -0.1% – into positive territory. The SNB’s move followed the European
Central Bank’s decision in June to impose negative rates on banks for
depositing cash, as part of a wider bid to boost activity and lending in the
ailing eurozone economy.
2 Social will be part of hiring trend in 2015 (Belo
Cipriani in San Francisco Chronicle) Thanks to the web and to social media, the
world has become smaller and more transparent. And just like workers have to
now be more mindful about what they put on the Internet, businesses must also
be more conscious of what their workers are saying about them. After all, with
Glassdoor, even people who are in the interview process are able to shine some
light into an organization’s inner workings.
Jerome Ternynck, founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters,
a recruiting software startup in San Francisco, says that applicant tracking
systems are phasing out as a result of a need for a more candidate-friendly
experience.
“The best companies,” Ternynck shares, “understand
that recruiting is a sales and marketing function where the candidate is the
Customer. The Customer! Not an anonymous applicant who needs to be tracked by a
machine. As a result, we are seeing the emergence of a new breed of recruiting
technology, more social, a lot more candidate-friendly and collaborative.”
Some Bay Area companies have already stepped away
from the more conventional recruiting tactics and have begun to use more
creative approaches to attracting candidates such as meetups, cocktail parties
and creating more eye-catching posts on social media. Also, the way in which
businesses promote their job openings has started to change in 2014 and will continue
to do so through 2015.
Those who are looking for work or are planning to
make a change in 2015, can expect a more social experience in your search. How
you present yourself in social media will continue to carry a lot of weight and
organizations will possibly take you out of the stuffy interview room and
immerse you in a social scene to see how you work in a team. Lastly, tools like
LinkedIn and Glassdoor will continue to be great allies in the hunt for your
next job.
3 Enter the Lumbersexual (Katherine Feeney in The
Age) He-Man manliness has been left behind. But is it altogether dead? Not
quite. Enter: The Lumbersexual, the next step in the evolution of the He-Man.
The step that comes after metrosexual, is a far cry from asexual, and might be
interpreted as an attempt to redefine male sexuality as something that borrows
from "before", but is altogether "now".
The Lumbersexual: he who sports a healthy beard,
flannel, big boots, and looks like he might be able to wield both axe and woman
over shoulder. He's the hipster guy with muscles, the bloke who knows
single-origin coffee but has calluses on his hands.. He would definitely know
how to pitch a tent, even if the frame is made from fibreglass and not wood
splintered from a tree this fella has felled.
The Lumbersexual: he who harks
back to a time when men were men, and women loved them for it.
Women still love him. But what is interesting about
the Lumbersexual is he doesn't need a woman to be okay. In fact, he might be
perfectly happy not having women around – women who get in the way. Much like
women have discovered they don't need a man to survive, men have learned how to
live perfectly lovely lives without women. The co-dependent, post-war,
nuclear-duo model has moved into the realm of irrelevancy.
The joke used to be about women getting headaches,
because they didn't want, or enjoy, sex. Consent lay entirely with women,
partly because it was assumed men would always consent, because men would
always want sex. But this isn't always the case. I know men, and I've heard
from men, who sometimes just don't feel like it. They are the classic "not
tonight" darlings.
Sometimes they have partners who understand. More
often, their partners don't. Because so ingrained is the idea that real men
want sex all the time, that when a woman encounters a fellow who doesn't, she
doesn't know what to do. She feels it's not him, it's her. Is it? Not always.
Sometimes he doesn't feel like sex. And that should be OK. Shouldn't it?
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