Bloomberg Employee furloughs in the retail industry are now well over 1 million after the owner of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, one of America’s biggest clothing store chains, suspended its store workers. TJX Companies Inc said that it would furlough the majority of its US workforce at stores and distribution centres. It employs about 286,000 people worldwide, with most based ...

Bloomberg Boeing Co has identified two new software problems with the grounded 737 Max that must be fixed before the jetliner can carry passengers again. The issues involve the flight-control computer and don’t affect the plane’s estimated return to service in mid-2020, Boeing said. The Max’s software has been undergoing a redesign after being linked to two fatal crashes that ...

Bloomberg Macy’s Inc, in the middle of navigating a broad US shutdown of nonessential businesses, said that Chief Financial Officer Paula Price is leaving her role. Price, who has been in the position for less than two years, “has made the decision to leave the company as of May 31,” the department-store operator said in a statement. She will remain ...

Bloomberg The federal government ordered airlines accepting financial aid to maintain minimal service levels to cities they served before the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the transportation system, but made adjustments for low-cost carriers and those that fly to some destinations only part of the year. The US Department of Transportation eased some requirements it made in a proposal after airlines and ...

Just what kind of economic slump will this be? It’s too early to know, but it’s not too early to speculate. I’ve done a totally unscientific survey of economic forecasts. Some were solicited by me; others I received from regular emails. What follows is a quick summary of what I found. It doesn’t attempt to forecast peak unemployment or the ...

We are seeing glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel that is the Covid-19 crisis. China, where the pandemic first struck, had its first day with no new deaths to report. Europe’s worst hit countries, Italy and Spain, are recording a slowing of their respective death tolls. And governments are now talking openly about lifting draconian lockdowns that ...

In the face of a global health emergency, automakers are stepping in — or being summoned — to make ventilators. Can they manufacture at the scale required, with the world needing a 10-fold increase in production to cope with the surge in coronavirus infections? It will be a severe challenge. Car companies such as Ford Motor Co, General Motors (GM) ...

In an ordinary April, Corporate America would now be gearing up for proxy season, preparing for annual meetings and arguing with activist investors over strategy. Instead, companies find themselves on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis, facing difficult choices about how best to protect workers, investors, and their businesses from the virus and its fallout. Among the issues normally ...

As a Manhattan resident, I’ll be the first to admit that New York City in general and Manhattan in particular are not optimally designed for social distancing. People here tend to get around not in their own automobiles but on foot or by bus, subway, taxi or ride-share. We buy our groceries mostly not in giant wide-aisled supermarkets but in ...

Italy was the first country in Europe to implement draconian measures to contain the Covid-19 epidemic. As the outbreak slows, the government is weighing when and how to reopen its economy. There’s not much cause for optimism, sadly. The coalition government of the populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party has been much better at enforcing lockdowns than ...