Hey Snackers,
Job interviews are sooo 2019: As the Great Resignation of 2021 continues, employers are holding “stay interviews” to see how they can get employees to stick around. We’ll see whether that had any effect on the November jobs report (FYI: drops this morning).
Stocks fell on Friday and ended the week lower after the spread of Omicron caused a period of market swings. Travel and tech stocks in particular dragged down the major averages.
Grab a taxi... or a taco. Singapore-based Grab started as a ride-hailing platform, but it’s now one of Asia's largest super apps. Think: Uber, DoorDash, Venmo, Expedia, Netflix, and Amazon... all in one app. The decade-old company has 187M users in eight countries — nearly double Uber's users. Yesterday, the super app became a super SPAC.
Can't color-coordinate your home screen... when you have just one app. Grab users can manage their entire lives in-app: from ordering groceries to booking resort vacays, to applying for loans and health insurance, and even streaming rom-coms.
Super apps aren’t just staying abroad.... American companies have been dipping into super-app territory. Think: Uber doing “delivery everything” and Facebook integrating payments, gaming, and shopping. All-in-one platforms are super convenient for users, but that comes at a cost: bigger privacy and regulatory concerns. As antitrust scrutiny heats up, becoming more super could get harder for US tech titans.
Three strikes… and you’re (locked) out. Major League Baseball owners locked out players yesterday after failing to reach a deal with the players’ union — its first shutdown in 27 years. When workers strike, they refuse to work; when employers lock out, they refuse to let employees work. Now all 30 teams are shut down, and no trades are allowed until a deal is reached.
Not the first labor curveball... MLB has had nine labor stoppages, including four lockouts. They haven’t usually interfered with regular-season games, but the 1994 strike resulted in the cancelation of 900 games — including the World Series. And MLB attendance didn’t rebound for more than a decade.
Labor is gaining power… and not just in sports. Pro athletes have leverage to negotiate with owners thanks to powerful players’ unions. And because of labor shortages and mass quittings, workers across the economy have gained bargaining power this year, too. That’s led to rising wages and better benefits — and the highest level of support for unions since 1965. Work stoppages are becoming common in other industries, from Kellogg’s and John Deere factories to BuzzFeed’s newsroom (just yesterday).
Authors of this Snacks own shares of: Square, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, and Uber
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