US
US HR MANAGER FIRED FOR POOR TREATMENT OF CANDIDATE AN HR manager has been fired after his poor treatment of a job-seeker came to light. Fifty-two-year-old Vietnam-born Minh had emailed a job application to logistics service provider Dash Delivery on January 22. The experienced truck driver was requesting any work the company had available. However, the reply from the hiring manager was where the story took a turn. “Let me tell you now, if you no speak
English, I will send you home,” wrote the manager Bruce Peterson in an email to Minh. Minh’s daughter posted the mocking reply on Twitter, where it has since been retweeted more than 23,000 times, with many lambasting the company and the manager. The next day, Dash Delivery sent Minh an email, apologising for Peterson’s actions and explaining that “following our investigation he is no longer employed with the company”.
GLOBAL
WORLDWIDE UNEMPLOYMENT TO REMAIN HIGH THE LABOUR agency of the United Nations says global unemployment remains high – though stable – at more than 192 million people, and there remains a shortage of “decent” work across both emerging and developed markets. “[The] global economy is still not creating enough jobs,” Guy Ryder, Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said. “Additional efforts need to be put in place to improve the quality of work for jobholders and to ensure that the gains of growth are shared equitably.”
The ILO also says that the global workforce will probably not grow enough during the next decade to compensate for the expanding group of retirees. It is expected that the average age of working people will rise from just under 40 in 2017, to over 41 by 2030. “The increasingly ageing workforce is likely to have a direct impact on labour markets. Ageing could lower productivity and slow down labour market adjustments following economic shocks,” Sangheon Lee, Director of Research, ILO, said.
FRANCE
CARREFOUR TO LAY OFF 3,600 FRENCH RETAIL giant Carrefour plans to terminate 2,400 jobs, around a quarter of the local workforce, at its head office in France. Another 1,233 jobs will be slashed in Belgium. The cuts are part of a revamp project dubbed “Carrefour 2022”, which the company hopes will save it €2 billion (S$3.3 billion) by 2020. These savings will then be invested in the online market, where Carrefour aims to triple its revenue from organic foods to €5 billion (S$8.2 billion) over the next five years. The pivot to the online market also includes a partnership with Chinese technology giant Tencent and grocer Yonghui in the Carrefour China unit, which is struggling amidst competition from rivals such as Alibaba. The company is also aiming to move away from the “hypermarket” model and instead open 2,000 new neighbourhood outlets in France. “We must revamp our model by simplifying our organisation, opening ourselves up to partnerships, and improving our operational efficiency,” said Alexandre Bompard, Carrefour’s CEO.
MARCH 2018
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