The Oscars of porn and the industry’s largest trade show will begin in one week, on January 22 at Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas. Inside, adult performers, producers, directors and crew will find out whether they’ve won the prestigious AVN Award in categories including “Best All-Girl Group Sex Scene” and “Best Big Butt Movie or Collected Release,” but outside, hospitality workers are picketing for a better union contract. It’s a massive week for the adult industry, but porn workers are conflicted about crossing the picket line, with many choosing to sit this one out entirely.

The Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE) and the Adult Video Network Awards, collectively often referred to as AVN, is expected to bring more than 45,000 attendees to Vegas for three days of signings and meet-and-greets for fans, panels and programming about the adult industry, and booths for hundreds of brands, studios, and sex toys. It’s also the biggest event of the year for the industry’s indie performers, who come out to shoot content and network, spending weeks and months planning agendas and setting up unofficial parties and meetups. The show has been going for decades—since 1998 when it shared space and dates with the Consumer Electronic Show, and later at the Hard Rock Hotel when vendors and performers were forced out of CES and started their own event a few weeks and a couple blocks away. 

Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, Nevada affiliates of UNITE HERE, represent 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno according to their website. They’ve been on open-ended strike since November, and are fighting for a new five-year contract for 700 workers. Union representatives said last month that the latest offer from Virgin Hotels Las Vegas was a 30-cent-a-year wage increase, which they rejected.

Virgin Hotels, formerly the Hard Rock before renovations and a rebrand in 2020, was AVN’s first home when it split from CES’ dates and venue in 2011 (AVN became its own event in 1998 but shared space and time with the mainstream electronics show, where attendees would drift from one to the other). Today, AVN is actually multiple events, including the AEE and the awards but also the Adult Novelty Expo (ANE), interNEXT Expo, GayVN Awards Show, and the “O” Awards. In 2020, when the hotel reopened, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas CEO Richard Bosworth called AVN and other conferences “very cherished clients.” 

Performer Electra Rayne told me on Monday she’s still planning to boycott the event as long as the strike is ongoing. She corresponded with the Culinary Union, and confirmed with them in an email she posted to X that striking workers are asking people to refrain from patronizing the venue in solidarity, which the union has since said publicly in statements. 

 “Thankfully I'm local so it's not like I spent a ton of money on travel or anything, and I'm supposed to go sign at the booth for my agent who has been super understanding about me needing to cancel should the strike be ongoing (which it seems it will be),” Rayne said. “I'm bummed to not see my fans, but the really sad part is that I was in a feature that's up for multiple awards this year, and I won't be able to celebrate that at the awards with the cast. We worked so hard on that movie and I'm so proud to have been a part of it, it's a really bummer to not get to participate in that moment.” 

Other people in the industry are planning to attend despite the strike, but still find the decision difficult. “It saddens me to hear that Virgin is not paying their workers a fair wage, as that is something everyone deserves. With that said, I will still be attending AVN as it is the biggest convention of the year for my industry and I do have agreements and obligations that were arranged far ahead of these strikes,” performer Leya Falcon told me. “I do find it quite disturbing to hear that some of those on strike are ‘allegedly’ harassing and sometimes even following in an intimidating manner those that decide to enter the property as we have nothing to do with their employment situation, we are simply doing our job, which to be fair, does not always pay fairly either. [The Culinary Union did not respond to a request for comment on this alleged harassment, but we will update if we hear back.] Just as they are working to care for their families, we are doing the same and we should not be bullied for it, especially in this economy. I do hope that they can see the other side of the coin here, much as we do see theirs, and understand that none of us are against them receiving fair pay, we are simply doing what we need to do to provide for our families as not all of us have the luxury to just decide to sit this one out.” 

Performer London River wrote on X that she would also still attend. “I likely can’t pull out of my commitments to AVN without experiencing losses. Considering that, I will be donating a percentage of my profits from the event to the strike fund,” she wrote, linking to a donation page for their fund. Striking workers are paid $500 a week out of this fund, a representative for Local 226 told me.

AVN declined to comment, but last week, it launched a FAQ page for attendees of the event. “The hotel has assured us that the strike will not impact the AVN Expo and Awards. Contingency measures are in place to maintain a memorable guest experience and exceptional service during the event,” the page says. 

On January 9, the Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG) issued a statement about the strike: “As the union for performers in the adult industry, care for the safety and well-being of our workers is paramount to our mission,” they wrote. “We feel this for not only our members and other workers in the adult industry but for all workers, regardless of their jobs. As union representatives, we support the sacrifices made by workers on strike, fighting for better working conditions. The officers of APAG voted unanimously to support our fellow union workers in Culinary Workers Local 226, and we will not cross their picket line in a show of solidarity.” 

APAG said it “strongly encourages” members to avoid crossing the picket line, as well as cancelling reservations at the hotel and contacting AVN, Virgin Hotels, and companies they were set to sign with at the event to express their concerns. 

And on Saturday, marking day 58 of the strike, APAG members joined Local 226 workers and their families for a march from the Las Vegas Strip to Virgin Hotels, blaring vuvuzelas and holding signs referencing Virgin Las Vegas’ contract negotiation offer of an estimated 30 cents an hour in wage increases. 

“The Adult Performance Artists Guild (APAG)’s decision to stand with Culinary Union strikers and honor the picket line at Virgin Las Vegas demonstrates unity, and the Culinary Union applauds the unwavering solidarity shown by the APAG and their members,” Ted Pappageorge, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union, said in a statement. “Workers across industries share the same fight for dignity, fair pay, respect, and protections on-the-job, and Culinary Union is proud to stand with APAG in solidarity as strikers continue to take on a billionaire-owned company that refuses to treat workers fairly. APAG’s support sends a powerful message: When workers stand together, we are unstoppable. To APAG members and all customers choosing not to cross the picket line – thank you for standing with workers on strike, with your continued support we will win.”

Last week, Pornhub announced that its team is canceling its upcoming trips to AVN and adult industry event XBIZ LA due to the strike in Vegas, and in Los Angeles, the wildfire crisis that’s required many LA residents to evacuate to hotels. “Unfortunately, this means our scheduled in-person events and workshops are no longer going on as planned. We are working closely with XBIZ to host our scheduled workshop virtually,” they wrote in a post on X. “We're so disappointed we won't be able to get face time with those of you who were planning to attend, and looking forward to seeing you all again soon.”

If workers don’t receive a fair contract soon, AVN won’t be the only event where attendees will have to choose between staying home or crossing a picket line. There are 11 other trade shows and events set to take place at Virgin Hotels in the coming weeks, including the Fancy Food Show, World of Concrete Expo, Academic Surgical Congress, CHAMPS Trade Show, and Kitchen and Bath Industry Show. 

• Some Starbucks customers are using the chain's mobile app to try to get faster drive-thru service.
• But Starbucks store employees say it just makes their job more difficult.
• The habit points to improvements that CEO Brian Niccol could make as he attempts a turnaround.

Starbucks baristas have a request for customers: Stop pulling into the drive-thru, then ordering coffee through the app, and asking for it a minute later.

Starbucks provides customers who order through the app an estimated time for when their order will be ready. While ordering, they can designate whether they want to pick up their order at the drive-thru or in the store, though Starbucks employees told Business Insider that many customers don't appear to pay attention to those options.

Still, some Starbucks customers seem to think that "hacking" the system by placing their order through the app when they're about to pull into the drive-thru — or when they're already waiting in line — will get them their venti pistachio lattes faster.

Some employees say it has the opposite effect, snaring their drink production. The employees also say the disruptive "hack" shows areas where the coffee giant could improve its order prioritization and preparation process.

BI spoke with three Starbucks employees about the issue. They asked not to be identified in this article for fear of retaliation at work, but we verified their employment.

Starbucks stores often have two separate production lines: one for drive-thru orders and another that handles orders placed in-store, through the app, and via third-party delivery apps like Uber Eats. When someone places an order, it's routed to one of these bars and generates a sticker that employees can attach to the side of a cup or other packaging.

"When people place their mobile order while they're already in line or they place their mobile order and show up a minute later, their mobile order might be behind 15 other people," one barista in the South told BI.

As a result, when the customer drives up to collect their coffee, "sometimes we haven't even seen the item that needs to be made," a barista in Florida told BI.

That means Starbucks workers, whom the company calls "partners," have to manually move that order to the front of the production line, employees said.

Preparing those orders on the spot can be especially hard if they contain multiple drinks. "It is our pet peeve, for sure," the barista said.

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, who joined the company in September, has said that he wants baristas to get customers their orders in four minutes or less.

He said he wants to distinguish between the company's quick service, provided to customers using the chain's mobile app in the drive-thru, and its slower, more personalized service that some walk-in customers might prefer.

Niccol has also emphasized the importance of removing obstacles for partners doing their jobs in-store. "Our green-apron partners want to provide exceptional service to our customers," Niccol said in an October message to shareholders, adding that Starbucks' leaders "need to remove those things that might stop them from doing that."

While it's still early, some Starbucks employees have told BI that changes Niccol has overseen have already made their lives easier. Starbucks said late last year that it would cut back on promotions, such as multidrink deals offered to its rewards customers through its mobile app. Some baristas have told BI that the move has made filling mobile orders less hectic.

The Florida partner previously said that Starbucks' decision for workers to blend some drinks instead of shaking them by hand had cut production time and allowed workers at his store to fill orders faster.

When it comes to mobile ordering, "we're working to improve sequencing with a new algorithm that enables on-time mobile order handoffs and supports our four-minute throughput with quality being our goal," a Starbucks spokesperson said, adding: "And over the coming months, we plan to take steps to better separate mobile order pickup from the café experience."

Starbucks is expected to tell employees more about its plans in a three-hour meeting that will close store dining rooms next week.

Some partners have suggestions about what might improve the situation.

The barista in the South said Starbucks could have a separate drive-thru lane just for picking up mobile orders — something Chipotle did under Niccol's leadership with its Chipotlanes.

Such a change could help shorten drive-thru wait times and improve the experience for customers who want to enjoy their order in-store, the barista said.

"When you place an order at the register, your order goes in behind all of the mobile orders that I have, so I'm going to be making drinks for people that are still driving to the store while you're already in the store waiting," the barista said.

"That doesn't create a good experience for the customer," the barista added.

Do you work at Starbucks and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• On Meta's internal forum, its employees criticized its decision to roll back DEI initiatives.
• It follows changes to Meta's content-moderation policies, which got rid of third-party fact-checkers.
• Meta's VP of HR said the term DEI had "become charged" and "suggests preferential treatment."

Meta employees spoke out on its internal forum against the tech giant's decision Friday to roll back its diversity, equity, and inclusion program.

Staffers criticized the move in comments on the post announcing the changes on the internal platform Workplace. More than 390 employees reacted with a teary-eyed emoji to the post, which was seen by Business Insider and written by the company's vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale.

Gale said Meta would "no longer have a team focused on DEI." Over 200 workers reacted with a shocked emoji, 195 with an angry emoji, while 139 people liked the post, and 57 people used a heart emoji.

"This is unfortunate disheartening upsetting to read," an employee wrote in a comment that had more than 200 likes.

Another person wrote, "Wow, we really capitulated on a lot of our supposed values this week."

A different employee wrote, "What happened to the company I joined all those years ago."

Reactions were mixed, though. One employee wrote, "Treating everyone the same, no more, no less, sounds pretty reasonable to me." The comment had 45 likes and heart reactions.

The decision follows sweeping changes made to Meta's content-moderation policies, which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday. The changes include eliminating third-party fact-checkers in favor of a community-notes model similar to that on Elon Musk's X.

As part of the changes to Meta's policy on hateful conduct, the company said it would allow users to say people in LGBTQ+ communities are mentally ill for being gay or transgender.

"We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like 'weird,'" Meta said in the updated guidelines.

One employee wrote in response to the DEI changes that, in addition to the updated hate-speech guidelines, "this is another step backward for Meta."

They added: "I am ashamed to work for a company which so readily drops its apparent morals because of the political landscape in the US."

In the post announcing the decision to drop many of its DEI initiatives, Gale said the term DEI had "become charged," partly because it's "understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."

"Having goals can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender," she said, adding: "While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it."

One employee told BI the moves "go against what we as a company have tried to do to protect people who use our platforms, and I have found all of this really hard to read."

Meta did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Do you work at Meta? Contact the reporters from a nonwork email and device at [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and New York’s attorney general have accused Handy, the gig app customers can use to book cleaners, handymen, and more, of making deceptive claims about how much workers could earn through its platform. In a complaint filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

• As a low-income student, I didn't think college was for me.
• I then enrolled in a college class as a high schooler, and it changed everything.
• I could finally see myself in college, and the class helped me find the right school for me.

I didn't always assume I'd go to college. However, during my senior year of high school, I had an opportunity to dual enroll in an English class at a local college for credit.

I grew up in a small rural town, and my school talked about different pathways post-graduation, including joining the military, entering the workforce, attending a trade school, or taking the "college-bound" track. I liked school, but the bureaucracy behind college enrollment, like college applications and FASFA forms, felt overwhelming at times.

My school allowed select students with the appropriate requirements to attend college classes in person at a local college. Students could earn college credit and interact with college students before returning to high school to finish out the day.

Enrolling in the college class was relatively straightforward since it was through a program at my school. The tuition for the class was covered. I just had to buy the books, which I was able to afford from the money I earned working as a hostess at a restaurant.

New opportunities gave me a glimpse of what waited after high school

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during a semester of my senior year of high school, I attended the small liberal arts college in my hometown.

I was side-by-side with college students and gleefully joined freshmen for an introductory English class. The professor was nice and supportive, and the process demystified college for me. Assignments that initially sounded intimidating, like papers and finals, weren't so different from my high school classwork.

The lectures were enjoyable and included funny movie clips from time to time. Completing the assignments kept me engaged intellectually and helped me feel accomplished.

Since the class was free, it was a no-pressure way for me to experience what college coursework would look like. This gave me practice as a student and made me realize I could handle it.

Most importantly, this opportunity gave me the confidence as a low-income student to realize that I could handle college classes. It also helped save me some money in the long run since I entered college with credits.

It helped me articulate and understand class differences in a new way

My hometown was a microcosm of America. It was socioeconomically diverse. There was rural poverty in my town — which is what I grew up in and was most exposed to during my childhood.

But my town was also home to an expensive college, where my dual enrollment was held. The college's tuition rates were more expensive than many locals earned all year, so there were affluent areas in my town as well.

Attending the college exposed me to new ways of living. I was integrated into a community that highlighted different realities for me.

While my school emphasized a variety of different options, I now understood that many people would have different paths. Many of the college students I interacted with were always expected to be on a "college-bound" path. Their trajectory reflected their expected outcome, and it was interesting to understand these new perspectives.

It shaped my future

My professor, who taught me in my dual enrollment class, helped me home in on my next steps, anticipating what my future could look like after high school graduation.

He suggested a college for me to apply to, which was the place he'd earned his Ph.D.. It was a school that I had never heard of, and I would never have learned about it without his guidance since it was in another state.

Ultimately, I took his advice and applied to the university that he suggested. I was accepted and attended. That decision changed the trajectory of my life, and it all started with the college class I took in high school.

• Starbucks underwent a lot of changes in 2024, and more are likely coming in 2025.
• New CEO Brian Niccol will face choices about unionized stores and the China business.
• Starbucks faced slumping sales and dealt with activist investors in 2024.

Starbucks was on the cusp of a big change in late 2024. This year will bring even more shifts for both baristas and coffee-lovers.

Starbucks' sales had slowed and even lost ground in the first half of 2024. Customers and employees pointed to operational challenges for the company, such as a lengthy menu and an explosion of mobile orders. There were even two activist investors with stakes in Starbucks during the summer.

Then, in August, the coffee chain surprised investors by saying that Brian Niccol would take over as its CEO, replacing Laxman Narasimhan, who had held the job for roughly a year and a half.

Niccol was known for turning around the Mexican grill chain Chipotle after a food poisoning crisis. He announced some changes after starting as CEO in September, such as cutting the number of discounts that Starbucks offers to members of its loyalty program.

Starbucks has also stopped charging extra for non-dairy milk, and is bringing back self-service bars for milk and other condiments to reduce complexity for its baristas.

It's already clear that those were just opening salvos.

Niccol said in October that he's "putting a full-court press" on getting drinks to customers within four minutes of when they placed their order.

He has also said he wants Starbucks to return to being a "third place" where people can hang out — a role it played for many patrons in its early years of national expansion.

Store employees — whom Starbucks calls "partners" — could get details on how that change will happen at three-hour meetings scheduled to take place later this month.

Partners have pointed to some specific areas where Starbucks might have to make adjustments to achieve Niccol's goals. Some have said that their Starbucks stores need to be better staffed, especially during the busiest times.

Others have suggested that a better process needs to be developed for handling mobile orders, which can be difficult to manage in addition to customers who walk in and others who order at the drive-thru.

There are further issues that Niccol will need to address in 2025.

These include Starbucks' unionized stores, which account for about 4.5% of the chain's locations. Starbucks workers at those stores went on strike in the days leading up to Christmas and have yet to secure a contract. An agreement would be the first ever between Starbucks and its store workers.

Starbucks and Niccol also have to craft a strategy for the company's business in China, its second-largest market after the US. In October, Niccol said that Starbucks was considering "strategic partnerships that could help us grow in the long term."

The following month, Bloomberg reported that Starbucks was weighing selling a stake in its China business and finding a partner in the country to manage the unit.

Niccol has only been at the helm for four months, but it's clear he has big plans for the coffee chain at home and abroad. Investors were hopeful when he joined the company, though it's too soon to tell whether his actions will result in a recovery this year.

Starbucks' challenge for 2025 will be to make itself more than a place for a quick cup of coffee. The chain has long held itself to higher service and quality standards than most fast-food joints, from offering healthcare benefits to part-time employees to encouraging customers to stick around the store and relax.

Yet one barista with almost two decades of experience at the company said his store has drifted from those higher standards lately.

"It started out as a trendy, quirky coffee shop job, and it's just morphed into this soulless fast-food empire since that time," the employee told Business Insider earlier this year.

Do you work at Starbucks and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• Minimum-wage workers in California, Vermont, and 19 other states will earn more at the start of 2025.
• Missouri voters passed a referendum in the November election raising the state's minimum wage.
• An analysis found over 9 million workers will likely be affected by the coming minimum wage increases.

Workers in 21 states are set to start the new year with a raise.

When the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, minimum wages across the nation are set to be hiked. In a few states, the minimum wage will rise to $15 an hour, a longtime target rate for advocates.

Hover over the states in the map below to see how much minimum wages will change.

Of the 21 states that will see an increase, 14 are subject to inflation-based adjustments as part of existing minimum wage laws, per a report from the left-leaning think tank Economic Policy Institute. The EPI report estimated that full-time impacted workers in those states will see their annual earnings increase by $420 on average.

In the November election, Missouri voters approved a referendum to increase the state's minimum wage to $13.75 on January 1, 2025, and then to $15 in 2026. Some small business owners in the state are reportedly already bracing for higher costs, and business groups there have already filed a legal petition to attempt to overturn the new proposition. Recent research has found that independent businesses are, on average, able to shoulder minimum wage increases — although higher minimum wages can lead to smaller restaurants shuttering.

A 2022 ballot initiative in Nebraska has the state on a similar trajectory, with workers set to get an increase to $13.50 in January 2025 and then a hike to $15 in 2026.

Alaska will increase the state's minimum wage to $11.91 on January 1 because of an inflation adjustment. Minimum wage workers will get another raise on July 1 because of a ballot measure in the recent election. The state minimum wage will rise to $13 in the summer, $14 the following July, and $15 in 2027. Its minimum wage would be adjusted for inflation after that.

Delaware and Virginia are the only states in the South that will see minimum wage increases at the start of the year. Five states in the South don't have minimum wage laws, and Georgia's minimum wage is below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, based on data from the Department of Labor. That means those states default to the federal minimum.

An analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that over 9 million workers are set to directly and indirectly benefit from increased state minimum wages.

Out of those workers, just over 3 million are directly set to see their pay go up. Even more will be affected indirectly. Over 6 million workers are within 15% of the new minimum wage floor — which, per EPI, means their employers are likely to adjust their wages to compete for talent.

In addition to state minimum wage increases happening in almost two dozen states on January 1, the National Employment Law Project said 48 cities and counties will also have minimum wage increases that day.

Nationally, the federal minimum wage has sat untouched at $7.25 since 2009. President-elect Donald Trump has signaled that he could be open to changing that number, telling "Meet the Press" that he would consider raising the federal rate — although he noted that the cost of living across the country varies, making it difficult to enact one flat rate.

Mike Draper, the owner and founder of screen-printing and retail business RAYGUN, whose 10 stores include a location in Missouri, told Business Insider that minimum wage increases — like the one recently approved by that state's voters — could help bolster workers' spending power. Draper already pays his workers a starting wage of $15.50 an hour.

"This is different from a tax increase, or a rent increase, or a cost of goods increase. None of that money is going to go directly back into your community, for the most part," Draper said, adding: "Increases to worker pay is going to be felt immediately."

Are you set to see your wages go up on January 1? Contact these reporters at [email protected] and [email protected].

• Gig work apps like Uber and Instacart continued to attract millions of workers in 2024.
• The job can still be lucrative, though many workers pointed to challenges.
• From hackers stealing accounts to tip baiting, here's what being a gig worker was like in 2024.

Being a gig worker for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Walmart Spark, and other apps came with opportunities and lots of challenges in 2024.

Millions of workers made grocery deliveries, dropped off takeout at doorsteps, and drove people to the airport through the apps. Workers involved in the gig economy told Business Insider that it's still a tempting way to make money.

At the same time, many told BI that they faced challenges working for the apps.

Here are some of the biggest factors that affected gig workers in 2024:

Gig workers said they made less money on apps like Uber Ears and DoorDash than in previous years

Workers' gross earnings on several gig delivery apps, including DoorDash and Uber Eats, fell in 2023, a study from Gridwise found in February. Uber Eats drivers, for instance, saw their earnings fall 15.4% on average — the largest drop of any service. Spokespeople for DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart told BI that the study used incomplete data.

Many gig workers don't even earn the equivalent of their local minimum wage after accounting for expenses such as gas, researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center and the Center for Wage and Employment Dynamics found in May.

In some cases, good tips have also gotten harder to come by. Workers for some services, such as Walmart's Spark, told BI that customers continued to "tip bait" them, or offer a good tip when the workers accept a delivery only to take it back afterward.

Some gig delivery services struggled with hackers

Hackers have targeted roughly one-fifth of accounts on food delivery apps, online fraud tracker Sift found in May. That total includes both customer accounts, which hackers can mine for reward points, and the delivery workers' accounts.

Some delivery workers for Walmart's Spark service told BI that they saw signs that someone else was using their account. One said that Spark told her that she was logged into more than one device and her activity history on the app included orders that she had never delivered.

Some legitimate, policy-abiding workers struggled with having their gig work accounts deactivated, often with little explanation or recourse, meanwhile. One facial recognition ID tool used by Walmart's Spark to prevent the improper use of driver accounts even kicked some actual workers off of the app. Walmart said at the time that the facial recognition feature was working as intended and that users who thought that they were incorrectly deactivated could appeal the decision.

Gig workers started their own businesses

Instead of continuing to earn money through apps like Uber or DoorDash, some gig workers started their own businesses to cut out the middleman.

Uber and Lyft drivers with their own black-car services, for instance, told BI that they have been able to make more money by building relationships with clients directly, including many whom they met through rides via the rideshare apps. It's also allowed them to work on their own schedules — something that the rideshare apps have long promoted as a benefit of working for them.

Tony Illes, a delivery driver in Seattle, used a similar approach to start his own food delivery service. Illes told BI that he promotes his service through posters around downtown Seattle and provides estimated wait times to his customers through voice notes.

Cities implemented new pay laws for gig workers

Cities such as New York City and Seattle implemented new laws about gig work, especially pay, at the start of 2024.

In New York, gig workers delivering restaurant food now earn $19.56 an hour at minimum, a rate that will be adjusted for inflation each year. Seattle implemented a law — part of a package called "Pay Up" — that required Instacart and other delivery services to pay workers the equivalent of $19.97 an hour.

The companies fought back. In New York City, for example, DoorDash added a $1.99 fee that it said offset that city's pay law.

And in Seattle, Instacart shoppers in the city's suburbs said that the app was sending them on longer routes to avoid taking them within city limits — and paying them more.

Gig work has expanded beyond rideshare and delivery

Using apps to find work as an independent contractor isn't unique to rideshare and food delivery.

One report summary released earlier this month by the Roosevelt Institute investigated the expansion of such gig apps to nursing jobs at hospitals, care homes, and other medical facilities.

Like rideshare and delivery workers, many nurses and nursing assistants told the researchers behind the report that they appreciate the flexibility that working for the apps gives them. Many also dealt with problems similar to other gig workers, from being kicked off the platforms without explanation to navigating a workplace without an in-person boss or clear coworkers.

One IT worker who found work as an independent contractor in that field told BI in February that he enjoyed the freedom but had a hard time finding a full-time job again.

Do you work in the gig economy and have a story idea? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected]

• I had a crush on my coworker and decided to tell him when my contract was up.
• He told me he was flattered but that he had a girlfriend.
• I wonder if the timing was off, but I'm glad I put myself out there.

I remember noticing him early on at my former job. He was funny and had a sunny smile, but he also struck me as confident and competent. A wave of excitement filled my heart every time he was around me, and I felt like a teenager with her first crush — even though I was in my mid-20s.

Maybe you don't like spoilers, but I do, so I will tell the truth right now. This is not a love story. This is a story of rejection after declaring my feelings to my former coworker when my contract ended.

I waited until my last day of work to finally confess my feelings for him, but I'm not sure it was the best decision.

I finally asked my coworker out

I didn't take the decision to tell him lightly. I debated with myself for a long time if I should tell him while we still worked together.

On one hand, I thought it would be heartbreaking for me if he politely declined and I had to see him every day. On the other hand, if he accepted my invitations and we began going out together, an awkward situation would arise. Even if we were working in different departments, being in a small company where we met every day surely didn't help my dilemma.

So, ultimately, I decided to come clean when my contract was finally up. When my six months ran out, I said goodbye to all my coworkers and devised a plan. I decided to finally confess my feelings as he stepped out of the office. Unfortunately, he didn't leave the office alone, so my plan was foiled. But I couldn't keep my romantic feelings to myself anymore.

When I got home, I wrote him a message, finally revealing that I had a crush on him and wanted to tell him in person, but there hadn't been an appropriate occasion. A few minutes afterward, I added that we could have a coffee together one day — if he wanted to.

My hands were sweating as I stared at the three dreaded bubbles showing he was typing. A long text message appeared; he was incredibly kind, even when rejecting me.

He said that he knows how difficult it is to declare your feelings, so he thanked me. Still, he was already seeing another girl.

Being rejected is painful. It can easily affect our self-worth and make us feel like failures. Even though I expected this rejection, I wasn't prepared for that intrusive emptiness that left me feeling lost and thinking that no one would ever want me.

Telling my friend what happened made things slightly more tolerable, but I needed a way to cleanse this intoxicating mixture of emotions from my body and mind.

Summer meant a lot of exercise classes in parks and on the beach. I decided to trade emotional pain for physical strain, and I went to a total-body class in July's heat. Moving my body and sweating felt amazing. It made me temporarily forget this situation.

I'm ultimately proud of myself

One question kept nagging me: Was it even worth telling him the truth?

But now that some months have passed, I don't have any regrets about how things went. Sometimes, I think if I had told him earlier, things could have gone differently, but anguishing over how something could have been is never sensible.

Regardless of the timing, I am proud of stepping out of my comfort zone and declaring my feelings. As an introvert, this can be incredibly challenging.

Even if it was painful at the moment, being rejected was better than remaining in doubt about his feelings.

Rejection is like a period at the end of a sentence. It can feel like an abrupt close, but endings often turn into new beginnings.

• Amazon workers at several warehouses went on strike on Thursday.
• The strike comes in the middle of Amazon's key holiday shopping and shipping season.
• Amazon said that it wasn't seeing an impact on its operations.

Amazon workers at seven Amazon fulfillment centers went on strike Thursday, though the retailer said it wasn't seeing effects on its holiday delivery operations.

The workers are walking off the job after Amazon refused to bargain with them over a contract, according to a statement from the Teamsters, which represents the employees.

The strike will affect three Amazon fulfillment centers in Southern California as well as one each in New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Illinois, according to the Teamsters. The union said it will also set up picket lines at other Amazon facilities.

The action comes in the middle of the key holiday shopping season. Amazon's highest quarterly revenue has historically come during the final three months of the year. This year, that period included the company's October Prime Day as well as deals for Black Friday.

"If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon's insatiable greed," Sean O'Brien, general president of the Teamsters, said in the statement.

O'Brien said that the Teamsters "gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members."

"They ignored it," he added.

An Amazon spokesperson said Thursday morning that the company hasn't seen its operations affected by the strike.

Spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement that the Teamsters recruited non-employees to participate in the strike and intimidate Amazon employees. When Business Insider asked for evidence of those claims, an Amazon spokesperson said, "We know our employees, and we know they are not out there. Our employees repeatedly claim to management that they experience harassment from activists."

"We appreciate all our team's great work to serve their customers and communities, and are continuing to focus on getting customers their holiday orders," Nantel said.

Workers at some Starbucks stores were also preparing for a potential strike this week. On Tuesday, a union representing about 10,000 baristas said its members had voted to authorize a strike, though negotiations with Starbucks have continued and no strike date has been set.

Do you work for Amazon and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected]

• Companies use "stealth firing" to quietly reduce staff without public layoffs.
• It involves dismissing employees for minor offenses to avoid public backlash.
• This tactic can harm company culture, leading to low morale and potential legal issues.

Some companies are opting for a new tactic in slimming down employee numbers — "stealth firing."

Meta let go around two dozen staff in October for using their $25 meal credits to buy other items, including laundry detergent and acne pads, while EY fired many more for "cheating" and taking multiple training courses at once.

The Financial Times, which first reported the EY firings, referred to these instances of being dismissed for minor offenses as "stealth firing."

Joe Galvin, the chief research officer at the executive coaching platform Vistage, told Business Insider that this sneaky sacking is "a "covert behind-the-scenes activity" that "violates the principle of respect for the individual."

A corporation might think: "I'm trying to downsize a little bit without saying I'm downsizing a little bit," Galvin said.

"So you go through this process that does nothing but break trust."

Short-term gain for long-term problems

Stealth firing leads from an era of "quiet firing," where companies methodically made employees' roles increasingly uncomfortable and less appealing, such as implementing strict return-to-office mandates.

This trend, along with the quietly agreed-upon severance packages of "silent layoffs," is a tactic to avoid the optics of publicly cutting dozens of staff.

Cynthia Patterson, the founder of the HR consultancy firm PeopleOps.how, who has 20 years of experience in HR across tech, AI, healthcare, and retail industries, told BI that while quietly trimming headcounts in these ways may work in the short term, they can cause serious issues for a workplace.

"Any short-term outcome is offset by the negative cultural impact," Patterson said. "Employees are left second-guessing their own value and stability, creating an environment of anxiety and mistrust."

A lack of trust and stability can lead to low morale, reduced productivity, and a stressed-out workforce.

"This dynamic mirrors the patterns of toxic and/or abusive work cultures, where fear and uncertainty are used — intentionally or not — as tools for behavioral control," Patterson said.

A shift in power

People are also perceptive, and employees who see their colleagues be shown the door for minor indiscretions will only make them wary and dissatisfied.

Patterson told BI companies who push people out in arbitrary ways are mistakenly viewing avoidance as kindness.

"Employee performance management is part of running a business," she said. "And it can't be skipped because it feels uncomfortable or inconvenient to the employer."

Stealth firing, Patterson said, simply exposes a company's inability or unwillingness to have honest, necessary conversations about performance — and "signals to employees that the organization doesn't have integrity."

Galvin told BI that companies willfully harming their reputations in this way may find they are the ones suffering and bleeding talent if an era of revenge quitting hits in 2025.

"The signs are pointing up toward a really strong 2025 — our community is energized, hiring's going back up again, investments are going up, expectations for profits and revenues are up," he said. "The power shifting."

Weigh up your options

It's always a smaller world than you think when it comes to work and looking for your next job, Ciara Harrington, the chief people officer of the leadership training platform Skillsoft, told BI.

"It's in the interest of everybody to keep good relationships," she said. "I don't think anybody really wants to leave a company on bad terms."

Sometimes, companies have to let their staff go, and the best thing for everyone is to do so with respect and honesty. That way, while the news isn't what the employees hope for, they still maintain a level of respect for the company.

The alternative is that employees post on public platforms such as LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and job review sites about their negative experiences, such as how they felt undervalued and lied to.

Patterson said these stories could reach future employees, customers, investors, and even employment lawyers, opening up companies to potential legal disputes.

"Strong companies know their employees are human beings and deserve to be treated as such," Patterson said.

Galvin told BI that if there are signs that your company is looking to stealth fire you, it's time to start weighing your options.

Even if your employer isn't planning on firing you, if their communication is poor, and you feel unsafe, it's best to get out anyway.

"In the absence of a story, we create one," Galvin said. "If you sense that's happening to you, you either have the direct conversation with your manager or start looking for your next job."

Puffs of smoke rose above a meadow in northeastern Washington as a small test fire danced in the grass a few feet away from me. Pleased by its slow, controlled behavior, my crew members and I, as part of a training program led by the nonprofit organization The Nature Conservancy and the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, began to light the rest of the field on fire. The scene had all the trappings of a wildfire — water hoses, fire engines, people in flame-resistant outfits. But we weren't there to fight it; we were there to light it.

It might sound counterintuitive, but prescribed fires, or intentionally lit fires, help lessen fire's destruction. Natural flames sparked by lightning and intentional blazes lit by Indigenous peoples have historically helped clean up excess vegetation that now serves as fuel for the wildfires that regularly threaten people's homes and lives across the West and, increasingly, across the country.

For millennia, lighting fires was common practice in America. But in the mid-to-late 1800s, the US outlawed Indigenous burning practices and started suppressing wildfires, resulting in a massive buildup of flammable brush and trees. That combined with the dry, hot conditions caused by the climate crisis has left much of the country at a dangerously high risk of devastating wildfires. The top 10 most destructive years by acreage burned have all occurred since 2004.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, federal land managers reevaluated their approach to fire and did the first prescribed burns in national parks. We're still making up for lost time: Scientists and land managers say millions more acres of prescribed burns are necessary to keep the country from burning out of control.

But the scale of the task doesn't match that of the labor force, whose focus is often extinguishing fires, not starting them. Responding to the increase in natural disasters has left America with few resources to actually keep them from happening. As Mark Charlton, a prescribed-fire specialist with The Nature Conservancy, told me, "We need more people, and we need more time."

This fall, I outfitted myself in fire-resistant clothing and boots, donned a hard hat, and joined a training program called TREX to better understand how prescribed burns work. TREX hosts collaborative burns to provide training opportunities in the field for people from different employers and backgrounds. The hope is that more people will earn the qualifications they need to lead and participate in burns for the agencies they work for back home.

The program's emphasis on learning, coupled with the support of the University of Idaho's Artists-in-Fire Residency (which helped pay my way), is why I, a journalist with no fire jobs on my résumé, could join a prescribed-fire module of about two dozen more experienced participants. I had to pass a fitness test — speed walking three miles with a 45-pound backpack in under 45 minutes — take 40 hours' worth of online coursework, and complete field-operations training to participate as a crew member. While hundreds of people have participated in TREX burns across the country since the program's inception in 2008, the dramatic growth of wildfires is outpacing the number of people being trained to reduce their impact.

The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of forests and grasslands across the country, burning an average of about 1.4 million acres, roughly the size of Delaware, each year with prescribed burns. It burned a record 2 million acres in fiscal 2023. But it's still not enough preparation, considering wildfires have burned over 10 million acres in recent years and people continue building and living in wildfire-prone areas. "It's a huge workload we have, and we know it," said Adam Mendonca, a deputy director of fire and aviation management for the Forest Service who oversees the agency's prescribed-fire program. The agency plans to chip away at the problem with the roughly 11,300 wildland firefighters it employs each year who squeeze the work in during the offseason, when there are fewer fires to fight.

But relying on wildland firefighters can be problematic. "We only have those resources for a short time," said Charlton, who served as the incident commander on the Washington burns I joined this fall. "After a long fire season, people are exhausted. It's hard to get people to commit." Plus, wildfires are increasingly overlapping with the ideal windows to do prescribed burns — often the spring and the fall, when conditions are cooler and wetter, making fires easier to tame.

That was especially true this year: Multiple large fires burned across the West into October. These late-season wildfires, coupled with two hurricanes that firefighters helped respond to, strained federal resources. That month, the nation's fire-preparedness level increased to a 5 — the highest level — indicating the country's emergency crews were at their maximum capacity and would've struggled to respond to new incidents.

In response to the elevated preparedness level, the National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group urged "extreme caution" in executing new prescribed fires, saying backup firefighters or equipment might not be available. "We get to the point where we're competing for resources," said Kyle Lapham, the certified-burner-program manager for the Washington State Department of Natural Resources and the burn boss on the Washington burns.

There's also a qualification shortage. Prescribed burns require a well-rounded group with a variety of expertise and positions — including a burn boss, who runs the show and must have years of training. Charlton estimated that hundreds more qualified burn bosses are necessary to tackle nationwide prescribed-burn goals.

Just as concerning is an interest shortage. The Forest Service has struggled to hire for and maintain its federal firefighting force in recent years, in large part because of poor pay (federal firefighter base pay was raised to $15 an hour in 2022) and other labor disputes over job classifications, pay raises, staffing, and more. The agency is also expecting budget cuts next year and has already said it won't be able to hire its usual seasonal workforce as a result.

Legislation inching its way through Congress could help, though its fate under a new administration is unclear. The National Prescribed Fire Act of 2024 would direct hundreds of millions of dollars to the Forest Service and the US Department of the Interior for prescribed burns, including investment in training a skilled workforce — but it hasn't progressed past a Senate subcommittee hearing in June.

Without a boost in funding, the agency will continue relying heavily on partnerships with nonprofits like The Nature Conservancy and the National Forest Foundation to staff prescribed burns. The Forest Service also recently expanded its Prescribed Fire Training Center to host educational opportunities out West. Critically, though, time is of the essence.

During my TREX training in October, about 20 foresters and firefighters from as far south as Texas and as far north as British Columbia worked beside me. Our group included employees of the Washington Department of Natural Resources and two citizens of the nearby Spokane Tribe of Indians, who have a robust prescribed-fire program of their own.

Over two weeks I got a front-row seat to how much planning (sometimes years) and time a single prescribed burn takes. We conducted several burns in the mountains north of Spokane on the property of a receptive landowner who'd hosted TREX in previous years. He provided the training ground and, in exchange, got work done on his property. This isn't a common scenario — burning on private land can be more complicated, and so more burns happen on state or federal property.

When I arrived, the burn's incident-management team had already put together a burn plan detailing our objectives — reducing wildfire risk to the landowner's house, thinning small tree saplings, knocking down invasive weeds, opening up more wildlife habitat — and the exact weather conditions, like wind speed, relative humidity, and temperature, we needed to safely burn. Prescribed burns on federal lands also go through an environmental review.

At the site, we scouted contained areas we would burn, called units, with trainees making additional plans for how to ignite and control fires. Keeping a fire in its intended location, called "holding," meant lots of prep work, like digging shallow trenches to box the fire in. During the burn, teams monitored smoke and occasionally sprayed the larger trees we wanted to preserve with water when flames threatened their canopies; others poured fuel on the ground, igniting bushes, grass, and smaller trees to slowly build the fire.

Managing the fire didn't end when we finished burning the 30 or so acres. In some cases, it can involve days of monitoring and cleanup. To make sure the fire was out, my crew and I combed through areas we'd burned the day before for smoke or heat. If we discovered something still smoking, we'd churn up the ground with a shovel or pickax, douse the hot spot with water, and repeat. Just when we thought we were done, we'd find another spot we'd missed.

I went to bed those nights dreaming of little puffs of smoke and woke up with small flakes of ash embedded behind my ears. The work was rewarding and exhausting — I left with a deeper appreciation for the workers who do it for a living.

While every prescribed burn is different, it's always a careful equation. Everything needs to line up: supportive communities, the right weather, and, of course, the workers necessary to plan, burn, and extinguish. Only then can you light the match.

Kylie Mohr is a Montana-based freelance journalist and correspondent for the magazine High Country News.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders says Amazon's focus on speed leads to "uniquely dangerous" workplaces.
• In a new report, which Amazon disputes, Sanders says its injury rates are worse than it lets on.
• Amazon is such a large employer it tilts the calculation of national statistics, the report finds.

Jeff Bezos once said Amazon would become "Earth's Safest Place to Work," but Sen. Bernie Sanders says the e-commerce juggernaut isn't even the safest place to work in its own industry.

A sweeping new report from the Sanders-led Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) says that Amazon's focus on speed leads to "uniquely dangerous" warehouses.

In the report, which Amazon, in a response updated on December 16, disputes as "fundamentally flawed," Sanders said the company's workplace injury rates are worse than it lets on, with nearly twice as many recordable injuries per 100 workers occurring at Amazon than at non-Amazon warehouses in each of the past seven years.

All US employers, including Amazon, must report to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration any injuries that cause "death, days away from work, restricted work or transfer to another job, medical treatment beyond first aid, or loss of consciousness."

The report also said that Amazon, in public documents and reports to the committee, "repeatedly compared the injury rate for its warehouses of all sizes to the industry average for large warehouses," which have 1,000 or more employees. Only 40% of Amazon's warehouses have that number of workers, it said.

The comparison is likely more favorable as "the injury rate for the subcategory of large warehouses is consistently higher than the overall injury rate for the entire warehousing industry," according to the report.

"We benchmark ourselves against similar employers because it's the most effective way to know where we stand," Amazon said in response to the report. "Putting ourselves in a different category would be misleading."

It also estimated that about two-thirds of large warehouses are Amazon's, and it employed nearly 80% of all of the workers at facilities of that size.

In other words, although Amazon compares its rate against national averages compiled by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for a subset of the warehouse industry, the report finds that Amazon is such a large employer it tilts the calculation of national statistics.

While Amazon has promoted its success in bringing its reportable injury rate down since 2019, the HELP committee's analysis showed that year had an unusually high rate of 9.01, while its long-term trend has remained relatively flat since 2017 between 6.54 and 7.74. The overall industry range in that period was 4.8 to 5.7, and the non-Amazon range was 3.17 to 4.18, according to the committee's analysis.

The report attributed much of the elevated injury rates to Amazon's "obsession with productivity and speed," which it said drives workers beyond safe limits.

"There is not a safe way to make rate without being injured," one worker identified as RN told the committee, referring to the target number of items processed per shift. "There is not a single person I worked with while I was at Amazon that didn't have an injury."

"Our safety progress is well documented, and we're proud of it," the company said. "We'll continue to invest in safety and continuous improvement for years to come as we work toward being the very best in the industries in which we operate."

If you are an Amazon worker who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

Just as Amazon warehouse workers are threatening to launch the "first large-scale" unfair labor practices strike at Amazon in US history, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a report accusing Amazon of operating "uniquely dangerous warehouses" that allegedly put profits over worker safety.

As chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Sanders started investigating Amazon in June 2023. His goal was "to uncover why Amazon’s injury rates far exceed those of its competitors and to understand what happens to Amazon workers when they are injured on the job."

According to Sanders, Amazon "sometimes ignored" the committee's requests and ultimately only supplied 285 documents requested. The e-commerce giant was mostly only willing to hand over "training materials given to on-site first aid staff," Sanders noted, rather than "information on how it tracks workers, the quotas it imposes on workers, and the disciplinary actions it takes when workers cannot meet those quotas, internal studies on the connection between speed and injury rates, and the company’s treatment of injured workers."

Read full article

Comments

Since the dawn of the generative AI era a few years ago, the march of technology—toward what tech companies hope will replace human intellectual labor—has continuously sparked angst about the future role humans will play in the job market. Will we all be replaced by machines?

A Y-Combinator-backed company called Artisan, which sells customer service and sales workflow software, recently launched a provocative billboard campaign in San Francisco playing on that angst, reports Gizmodo. It features the slogan "Stop Hiring Humans." The company markets its software products as "AI Employees" or "Artisans."

The company's billboards feature messages that might inspire nightmares among workers, like "Artisans won't complain about work-life balance" and "The era of AI employees is here." And they're on display to the same human workforce the ads suggest replacing.

Read full article

Comments

On a September morning in 2024, two Jonathan Cohens — one from the Rockaways in Queens, the other from London — stood in an empty 15,000-square-foot parking garage near Hudson Yards in New York City. As they walked over chipped yellow lines, they explained how the space would help Joco, their shared e-bike startup for […]

© 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

• Nvidia's workforce has grown nearly 20-fold since 2003.
• The company's stock price surge and low turnover have enriched many long-term employees.
• Nvidia's median salary now surpasses Microsoft's and other Silicon Valley peers.

Nvidia was largely unknown just a few years ago.

In 2022, google searches for Jensen Huang, the company's charismatic CEO, were almost nonexistent. And Nvidia employees were not nearly the source of fascination and interest they are today.

Nvidia recruiters are now swamped at conferences, and platforms like Reddit and Blind are full of eager posters wondering how to land a job or at least get an interview at the company, which has around 30,000 employees.

They want to know how many Nvidians are millionaires — likely quite a few.

The skyrocketing stock price has made that the case, but so has the longevity of its employees. Twenty-year-plus tenures are not uncommon, and even now when AI talent has never been more prized, staff turnover has been falling in recent years. In January, the company reported a turnover rate of 2.7%. Tech industry turnover below 20% is notable, an HR firm told Business Insider earlier this year.

The data behind the evolution of Nvidia's workforce tells the story of the company's meteoric rise just as well, if not better than the revenue or stock price. Until the early 2000s, the chip design company, which was founded in 1993, was relatively under the radar. Here is Nvidia's story in four charts.

Nvidia's workforce has grown nearly 20-fold since 2003

Beyond Nvidia's historic rise in market value, the company has a lot to offer employees. It maintains a permissive remote work policy even as tech giants like Amazon mandate a return to the office. It has also built an appropriately futuristic new Santa Clara, California, headquarters which robotics leader Rev Lebaredian described to Business Insider as so tech-infused it is a "type of robot."

But the culture isn't for everyone.

Public feedback, for example, is a very intentional part of the workplace culture. Huang famously has dozens of direct reports and eschews one-on-one meetings, preferring to call out mistakes in public rather than saving harsh feedback for private conversation, so that everyone can learn.

Nvidia has become one of the best-paying firms in Silicon Valley

Four years ago, Nvidians' median salary wasn't at the top of the market. In 2019, Microsoft's median employee salary was nearly $20,000 higher than an Nvidia worker. But as of January 2024, Nvidia's median salary (excluding the CEO) surpassed Microsoft and has left other tech giants in the dust.

Yet, this chart only reports on base compensation.

Years of stock-based compensation and "special Jensen grants," along with four-digit growth in the stock price within the last decade, have led to wealthy employees and, at times, internal tension surrounding rich Nvidia employees not pulling their weight.

Certainly, not all Nvidians are millionaires and the compensation the company is required to report to shareholders every Spring isn't quite the full picture. Still, Huang has repeatedly said that despite Nvidia's AI dominance, he wakes up worrying about staying on top.

Nvidia's revenue per employee has recovered after years of investment

Divide the company's revenue by its employee headcount and its financial strategy shows through.

Beginning in 2006, long before using graphics processing units to run AI models was commonplace, Nvidia invested in building a programming software layer called compute unified device architecture (CUDA).

Nvidia's GPUs are capable of immense computing capacity at nearly unprecedented speed because they perform calculations simultaneously rather than one at a time. Instructing these powerful chips required a new software paradigm.

CUDA is that paradigm and building it took years and cost Nvidia dearly. In hindsight, the benefit of this investment period is undeniable. CUDA is the main element that keeps AI builders from easily or willingly switching to competing hardware like AMD's MI325 and Amazon's Trainium chips.

It's not a literal translation of every employee's contribution, but looking at the revenue-to-headcount ratio can show trends in efficiency, investment, and return.

Nvidia's revenue-to-headcount ratio showed a downward trend from 2003 until 2014, and then steady upward progress until the AI boom in 2023. During that year, this ratio doubled.

CUDA is likely not the only factor affecting this data point, but it may help explain why investors questioned CUDA expenditures for years — and why they no longer do.

But the company isn't as far ahead in other areas.

Nvidia has less than one in five women employees — but it has pay parity

Despite the dizzying progress of Nvidia's technological achievements, gender representation in the company's workforce and the semiconductor industry as a whole has remained relatively unchanged in the last decade. As of January 2024, Nvidia's global workforce was 19.7% female.

Nvidia's stats are in line with the industry totals for female representation, but ahead of the pack when it comes to women in technical and management positions.

According to a 2023 Accenture analysis, the median representation of women in the semiconductor industry is between 20% and 29%, up from between 20% and 25% in 2022. Over half of the companies in the sample reported less than 10% representation of women in technical director roles and less than 5% in technical executive leadership roles.

In January Nvidia reported that women at the company make 99.5% of what men make in terms of baseline compensation. For the last two years, the turnover rate for women at the company has been slightly lower than that for men.

Nvidia declined to comment on this dynamic when BI reported on it in September.

Do you work at Nvidia? Have a tip or an insight to share? Contact Emma at [email protected] or use the secure messaging app Signal: 443-333-9088

• Donald Trump's new DOGE commission, tasked with cutting spending, has floated laying off federal workers.
• Government employees said they were preparing by networking and freshening their résumés.
• Amid the concerns with DOGE, some employees said there could be benefits to its aims.

Federal employees are reporting mixed feelings about President-elect Donald Trump's new Department of Government Efficiency and its ideas to cut costs by laying off workers and enforcing return-to-office mandates.

Some are worried, some are optimistic, and most are considering their other career options, 10 people who spoke with Business Insider said. Most asked for anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.

"We're just workers. We work in a nonpartisan way," one Department of Health and Human Services employee said, adding that they were nervous, especially because they recently bought a home. "It kind of feels like we're being villainized."

On the other hand, Jesus Soriano, who's been a program director at the National Science Foundation for 13 years and is president of the agency's American Federation of Government Employees union, said that while employees were scared, there were "reasons for optimism with DOGE."

Trump said his picks to lead the unofficial commission, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, "are technologists."

"They have — both of them in their own fields — translated science into products that have tremendous impact on the public and that contribute to America being a preeminent powerhouse," he said.

Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and other various companies, and Ramaswamy started a tech-focused pharmaceutical company called Roivant Sciences.

In the wake of the DOGE Commission, many government workers said they were updating their résumés, networking more, or assessing new career options — regardless of their political beliefs.

"Everyone is putting their ducks in a row," a Department of Housing and Urban Development administrative worker of 10 years who worked under Trump's first term told BI. "You can't be lackadaisical, regardless that the government may take forever to do something. You better be one step ahead at all times."

While it's still unclear how exactly DOGE would cut government spending, Musk and Ramaswamy have pledged to eliminate some government agencies, which could mean laying off thousands of federal workers, and compel others who have been working from home to return to the office.

The federal government is the largest employer in the US, paying more than 2 million civilian workers. The Departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and Defense are among the top employers, with workers earning average salaries near $100,000. Just under half of all workers across 24 agencies were telework-eligible as of May 2024, according to an Office of Management and Budget report.

"Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don't want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn't pay them for the Covid-era privilege of staying home," Musk and Ramaswamy wrote about their cost-cutting plans in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal.

Brian Hughes, a Trump-Vance transition spokesperson, told BI the administration "will have a place for people serving in government who are committed to defending the rights of the American people, putting America first, and ensuring the best use of working men and women's tax dollars." He didn't offer any details on cuts.

Soriano, the National Science Foundation program director, said government workers were "still scared." He said five colleagues he'd talked to were actively seeking new jobs or opting to retire.

Increased efficiency is a welcomed idea. In-office mandates, not so much.

Trimming government spending and improving efficiency is an idea often discussed on both sides of the political spectrum.

President Ronald Reagan pursued a similar goal with the Grace Commission, a team of 160 private-sector executives who proposed more than 2,000 cost-cutting measures. President Bill Clinton also attempted to reduce federal spending and improve government efficiency with the National Performance Review, led by federal employees.

The efforts had mixed results. Many proposals from the Grace Commission that relied on congressional acts didn't end up happening, while executive orders were successful in reducing the head count of federal workers. Clinton's panel similarly succeeded in cutting 300,000 federal workers but managed to get only a quarter of proposals that required legislative action through Congress.

An operations manager at the US Postal Service who has worked in the department for 27 years told BI every company had inefficiencies, and "that's what we all strive to decrease."

He has concerns, however, about people stepping in to make suggestions for the Postal Service without having "tribal knowledge" of the department.

"If you're just going to be appointed to this type of commission or committee with no knowledge of what exactly the Postal Service does, then that could potentially be a problem," he said.

DOGE's intent to eliminate remote work is also a concern for some workers. The HUD employee, who'd been working remotely, said return-to-office enforcement would "absolutely" be enough to cause them to resign. They're preparing for layoffs under DOGE by looking at other employment opportunities, and they said their colleagues at HUD were taking similar steps.

Joyce Howell, an attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency — who's been at the agency for more than 31 years and serves as executive vice president of its AFGE union — said the incoming administration had stoked concern about layoffs at the EPA and fears that its mission could be compromised.

"We have town halls once a month, and we've actually broken our Zoom account in terms of the number of people attending," she said of union meetings.

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in the Journal op-ed that the commission would target more than $500 billion in what they called unauthorized government spending. They said federal employees who were laid off would be offered early retirement. At a town hall in October, Musk said he would consider giving laid-off workers up to two years' severance.

An employee at the Food and Drug Administration said it wasn't that easy: "We're here to support a mission. We have families to feed, and it's not as easy as just quitting our jobs," the FDA employee said.

"We're just normal, everyday people — we're being portrayed as inefficient, lazy people," they added. "It feels like they're coming for us just for their own agenda, not realizing that we're the backbone of the federal government."

Another federal-government lifer said many workers like them — people who'd been there for years — were nervous they might be the first to go. The career tenure of a median federal government worker was 6.5 years in 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, well above the median 3.5 years private workers have spent in their roles.

One senior official at the Commerce Department said they anticipated a civil-servant brain drain. "The scientists are the most concerned," the official said, with those in climate, meteorology, and environmental science particularly worried.

The Department of Education has meanwhile been singled out as an entire agency that could be on the chopping block.

Sheria Smith, the president of the AFGE union at the Department of Education and a civil rights attorney at the agency, said department elimination was "on the lower end of concerns" because it would take time and need to go through Congress.

Rather, being turned into a "Schedule F" workforce, which allows government agencies to reclassify workers and remove certain protections that make them easier to fire, could mean employees who aren't "aligned with the executive wholly" could be laid off based on performance.

And given the widespread denigration of the Education Department and return-to-office threats, people are most likely looking for other work. "I'd be surprised if they weren't," Smith said.

Are you a federal worker willing to share your story? Contact these reporters at [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

• Some Uber and Lyft drivers are starting businesses driving people they've met through the apps.
• It's more profitable and offers better autonomy, four drivers told Business Insider.
• Uber and Lyft drivers can make as little as $3 a ride, pushing some to look for alternatives.

Brian started driving for Uber in California in 2013. At the time, it paid enough to be his full-time job.

Since then, working for the ride-hailing app has become less profitable, he said. But Uber and its rival Lyft still play an important role in his work — to recruit customers for his black-car service.

"I get a lot of people that I pick up randomly on Uber asking me, 'Hey, do you do private rides?'" Brian said in an interview with Business Insider. "And I say, 'Yes,' and I give them my business card, and if they want to book me, I'm happy to give them a price quote."

Brian is one of four drivers who told BI about starting his own business offering rides outside Uber and Lyft. He and the other drivers interviewed for this story asked that BI not use their full names for fear of being deactivated by Uber and Lyft. BI has verified their identity and work for the apps.

All four have had a similar experience: Driving exclusively for Uber and Lyft used to pay well, they said. But over the past few years, ride-hailing drivers' earnings have fallen to as little as $3 a ride. They say their businesses offer customers more reliable, higher-quality rides than they can often find on the apps — and sometimes, for less money.

Drivers pitch Uber and Lyft customers

About half of Brian's trips come from his list of private clients, he told BI. The other rides he still finds on Uber and Lyft, mostly to fill in what some drivers call "dead miles" — distances driven to get to or from a ride, which the apps don't compensate drivers for.

A trip for a private client could involve picking someone up at 3:30 a.m. to go to the airport or driving to and from a baseball game on the weekend. Those trips tend to make him more money than similar routes on the apps, he said, since Uber and Lyft aren't taking a share of the fare.

Unlike his experience with the apps, he's gotten to know many of the people he drives for, which he said helps generate repeat business and get him new customers.

"I won't advertise, but someone will post me on the Nextdoor app like, 'Hey, this driver is good, reliable — his prices are reasonable.'"

When BI asked whether drivers can pitch their own businesses while on a trip for Uber, an Uber spokesperson said the app's drivers are independent contractors. The spokesperson also referenced company statistics that Uber drivers make more than $30 an hour "while active on the app."

A Lyft spokesperson referenced the company's terms of service, which state that drivers can have other employment "including but not limited to providing services similar to the Rideshare Services to other companies."

Making money on Uber and Lyft is harder, some say

Torsten Kunert, a ride-hailing driver and YouTuber who makes videos about the industry, said he's noticed more drivers trying to develop their own businesses over the past year and a half. He offers an online course for drivers looking to make the change, with advice ranging from pitching Uber and Lyft riders on their services to navigating commercial insurance.

Riders are often looking for a better deal. Kunert said that he often prices his rides for private clients below the going rate for a similar trip on Uber. Prices for various app-based services, such as Uber and Airbnb, have increased over the past few years as the so-called millennial lifestyle subsidy has dwindled.

"The rider and the driver are pretty much experiencing the same story, really," he said.

Offering private rides has its costs, Kunert said. Drivers have to buy their own commercial insurance and develop their list of clients. Many drivers who start their own businesses also drive high-end vehicles, such as luxury sedans and SUVs, which can involve a higher monthly auto loan or lease payment, he said.

The drivers BI spoke with said the switch was worth it.

Phil, an Uber driver in Ontario, Canada, told BI he offers rides around his town for 10 Canadian dollars regardless of distance. He still occasionally works for Uber, picking up similar rides for 3 or 4 Canadian dollars just to pitch riders on his private service. "The pay is so poor," he said.

One driver in San Diego who runs his own black-car service told BI that he drives a Cadillac Escalade and mostly serves business clients who pay him more than he would make on Uber's black-car service.

It's more work than just picking up trips through Uber or Lyft. The driver said he spends more time cleaning his car and texting clients to set up rides than when he relied on the apps for work.

But he said his earning potential has gone up. Some clients pay him $100 an hour to wait outside business meetings just so they can have a car ready to leave as soon as they're finished, he said.

Many drivers for the apps are "just saying 'this is not worth it anymore,' or they're becoming independent contractors on their own," he said.

Kunert said many drivers he advises enjoy not having to worry about Uber or Lyft deactivating their accounts or figuring out whether the pay the apps offer for a trip will make them any money.

"You truly, for the first time, you step into your self-worth, and you become a true independent contractor," he said.

Do you work for a ride-hailing or gig delivery service and have a story idea to share? Reach out to this reporter at [email protected].

• Trump's plans to deport millions of immigrants could exacerbate America's demographic challenges.
• The US birth rate has been falling, which economists say could hobble the labor market and economic growth.
• Trump's plan could result in an older population and fewer workers, economists told BI.

Donald Trump's plan for a sweeping immigration crackdown involving mass deportations has been described as potentially inflationary, but economists say it could exacerbate another problem America faces: an aging population.

Immigration was thought to be one solution to Americans having fewer kids, and reversing the trend could result in a larger population of older people and lead to a smaller workforce, economists have said.

Demographic shifts are likely to be greater if immigration is significantly curtailed, Alan Berube, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said.

During his campaign, the President-elect promised to deport unauthorized migrants, of which there are around 11 million in the US, according to the Center for Migration Studies. Trump also promised to ban refugees from some countries and reinstate travel bans he implemented in his first term, which could restrict immigration flows.

If immigration were to fall to "low" levels—which the Brookings Institution defines as 350,000-600,000 net migrants per year—the US population could drop by 4% by the end of the century, Berube said, citing a 2023 Brookings projection. If the US were to completely close its borders, the population could drop 32% by 2100.

Berube told BI that the effects of the immigration policy Trump ultimately pursues in his term would likely fall between those two estimates. He added that this could create issues for the rest of the population, which will need to support a larger cohort of older people.

In the group's low immigration scenario, America's 65-and-older population would make up 57% of the working-age population by the end of the century, up from 28% in 2022.

"The US workforce right now is aging more rapidly than at any point in our country's history," Berube said. "Even as our population ages, if we cut off the supply of immigrant labor, the challenges that go along with an aging population and an aging workforce are going to get much more serious."

Trump and the Republican party have said that the goal of deportations would be, in part, to drive down the cost of healthcare, housing, and education for Americans.

"The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver," Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump's camp, told BI in an email when asked about the potential impacts of Trump's immigration policy.

Economic challenges

Fewer people coming into the US would likely be a headwind to growth, given that the birth rate has been trending down for decades. The general fertility rate hit a record low in 2023, with just under 55 births for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Berube said immigration is thought of as a band-aid to demographic problems since immigrants tend to be younger, which offsets the aging population. Immigrants also tend to work at higher rates, supplementing the job market.

The US had around 8.3 million unauthorized immigrant workers in 2022, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

Certain sectors are particularly at risk of labor shortages in the event of fewer migrant workers, according to José Torres, a senior economist at Interactive Brokers.

Sectors with a high proportion of undocumented immigrant workers, like construction and agriculture, could see the number of workers fall. Those industries are already facing steep labor shortages, with construction in particular facing a shortage of 200,000-400,000 workers each year.

While Trump's pro-market policies will offset some of the economic impact, Torres thinks GDP could fall by half a percentage point once Trump implements his immigration crackdown.

"When you have immigrant flows, that's growth positive. That lifts your GDP in the short run because you have all these folks that are coming in. They're coming for economic opportunity, they're working really hard," Torres told BI. "So that's going to be a headwind to the labor market overall," he said of deportations.

Todd Buccholz, a former White House economist during the George H.W. Bush Administration, thinks Trump's immigration policies will have a mild economic impact, partly because he doubts immigration will fall over the long term.

"I think it's important that the country recognize the aging of the population, the lower fertility rate," Buccholz said. "If you say, no one else is coming in, the gate is locked and no one else can play … we're going to be shrinking and have more senior citizens and fewer people to support them. I think that raises real issues," he added.