Month: April 2017

Each day, millions of Americans drink purified water and other beverages from disposable plastic bottles. More than 60 million of those bottles are dumped in landfills or burned in incinerators daily. But a couple of American entrepreneurs are putting some of them to good use by recycling them into shoes. …

You may have noticed: Much of the recent anti-immigration rhetoric in Washington most loudly comes from factions on the political right: H1B, H2B, it’s all about protecting American jobs. But every step of the way, progressive groups — while pro-immigrant — are just as critical of foreign worker visas. Federal regulations on the books, they argue, are inherently insufficient to protect visa holders from abuse, whether through unwarranted recruitment fees, misrepresentation of job requirements, fraud or intimidation. The issue plagues potential recruits, but also well-meaning businesses that can’t find enough Americans willing to take seasonal jobs. In Cape Cod, Massachusetts and other areas of the country whose economic models are centered on five-to-six-month tourist seasons, the work of H2B visa-holders becomes essential to business owners. Employers worry, too Tyler Hayes, vice president of Cape Cod Restaurants, says he is fortunate that his seasonal foreign workforce, mainly from Jamaica, has created a “family atmosphere” during his 20-year tenure with the company. “Now, their children are coming in, working for us,” Hayes said. But while Hayes can only point to the well-being of his own workforce, he acknowledges that at least in recent years, abuse of workers has not been inconceivable. “There used to be these companies that would send out these big petitions,” Hayes recalled. “They bring in 100 or 200 people, get them in the country and then farm them out.” In response, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cracked down on abuse within …

Steeped in centuries of seemingly impenetrable tea tradition, Afghanistan’s capital is getting a little coffee buzz. Nargis Aziz Shahi says business has been increasing day by day since she opened iCafe a couple of weeks ago. Looking a little like a brick-walled Starbucks with a distinctively homey Afghan feel, it’s attracting a mostly youthful clientele drawn by free internet service and books to peruse over a cup or two. “There were three key objectives that led me open the cafe: 1) to introduce coffee to Afghans who mostly don’t know coffee and its taste and benefits; 2) to provide a place for our youth to carry out social activities; and 3) to provide job opportunities for young people,” Shahi told VOA’s Afghan service. Tea came to Afghanistan early Afghanistan was introduced to tea early because of its location on ancient trade routes. The Chinese traded silk and tea for other commodities. Tea became part of the country’s hospitality for guests. Just about every family has its own recipe. Today, Afghanistan is the world’s largest tea consumer, with each person consuming an average of almost 4.5 kilograms — more than 1,500 cups — per year in 2012. By comparison, the U.S. ranked 72nd at 0.4 kilograms per person. Only the Russian Federation and Britain, with much larger populations, import more tea. Coffee culture gets a start Dr. Nabi Misdaq, adviser to President Ashraf Ghani, has visited iCafe. He regards coffee drinking as a new, enlightening culture in Afghanistan. “It is a …

Steeped in centuries of traditional tea drinking, Afghanistan is getting a little coffee buzz for a change. Hikmat Sorosh has more on this popular new trend from the Afghan capital, Kabul, in this story narrated by Michael Lipin, with additional reporting by Khalil Noorzaie in Herat. …

The impact of automation on U.S. jobs is open to debate. Robots have displaced millions of manufacturing workers, and automation is getting cheaper and more common, raising concerns it will eventually supplant far more workers in the services sector of the economy, which includes everything from truck driving to banking.  University of Virginia Darden School of Business Professor Ed Hess says we are just starting to see automation’s impact. “It is going to be broad and it is going to be deep,” he said, adding that “tens of millions” of jobs could be at risk. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared already. While some politicians blame trade for the job losses, most economists say automation is mainly to blame as robots do routine factory tasks previously done by humans.  Hess calls self-driving cars and trucks a threat to millions of human jobs, and says fast-food workers are also vulnerable, as companies install electronic kiosks to take restaurant orders. McDonalds says displaced workers will be reassigned to other tasks. The professor says research shows nearly half of U.S. jobs could be automated, including retail store clerks, doctors who scan X-rays for disease, administrative workers, legal staffers, and middle managers. Future of jobs Starting more than a century ago, advancing technology changed the United States from an agrarian to a manufacturing economy. Displaced farm hands eventually found factory work, but the transition took years. This new transition may also take a time because, …

Robots have displaced millions of manufacturing workers, and automation is getting cheaper, more capable, and far more common in the much-larger services sector. This area includes everything from truck driving to banking and has far more jobs than factories had. VOA’S Jim Randle reports that one expert says “tens of millions” of jobs could be at risk, but others say the picture is more complex, and less grim. …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration declined to name any major trading partner as a currency manipulator in a highly anticipated report on Friday, backing away from a key Trump campaign promise to slap such a label on China. The semi-annual U.S. Treasury currency report did, however, keep China on a currency “monitoring list” despite a lower global current account surplus, citing China’s unusually large, bilateral trade surplus with the United States. Five other trading partners who were on last October’s monitoring list – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland – also remain on the list, ensuring that the Treasury would apply extra scrutiny to their foreign exchange and economic policies. The Treasury report recognized what many analysts have said over the past year, namely that China has recently intervened in foreign exchange markets to prop up the value of its yuan currency, not push it lower to make Chinese exports cheaper. Foreign exchange experts told Reuters last week that a manipulator label was unlikely for Beijing. Trump, who on the campaign trail blamed China for “stealing” U.S. jobs and prosperity by cheapening its currency, repeatedly promised to label the country as a currency manipulator on “day one” of a Trump administration – a move that would require special negotiations and could lead to punitive duties and other action. The report did call out China’s past efforts to hold down the yuan’s value, saying this created a long-term “distortion” in the global trading system that “imposed significant and long-lasting hardship …

U.S. President Donald Trump nominated former Republican lawmaker Scott Garrett as president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States on Friday, completing an about-face over an institution he had denounced as “featherbedding” for big business. A White House statement also named Spencer Bachus, another Republican former congressman, to be a member of the board of directors of the bank. Both were named for four-year terms. Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday he would fill the two vacancies on the bank’s five-member board that have prevented it from having a quorum and being able to act on loans over $10 million. His picks must gain approval from the Senate, which blocked nominees by former President Barack Obama. The Export-Import Bank, an independent government agency, provides loans to foreign entities that enable them to purchase American-made goods. For example, it has been used by foreign airlines to purchase planes from Boeing and farmers in developing nations to acquire equipment. The bank has become a popular target for conservatives, who worked in Congress to kill the institution, arguing that it perpetuates cronyism and does little to create American jobs. Trump’s backing of the bank represents a victory for manufacturers like Boeing and General Electric, which have overseas customers that use the agency’s government-backed loans to purchase their products. Trump told the Journal the bank benefits small businesses and creates jobs, a reversal of his earlier criticism of the bank as being “featherbedding” for wealthy corporations. Trump’s about-face followed a meeting …

China is rushing to complete billions of dollars in construction deals ahead of an international conference for its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) project next month. The agreements in several countries are aimed at creating a picture of success for the project, which has become a cornerstone of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s administration. The heads of at least 20 countries are expected to attend the OBOR conference in mid-May, one of the biggest diplomatic events on Beijing’s political calendar this year. Since March, Chinese ministers have been flying around the globe to sign major construction contracts. Those include a $65 billion investment deal with Saudi Arabia, a $4.7 billion agreement for building a Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway line, and $3.75 billion worth of infrastructure projects in western Australia. China also reached an $850 million biorefinery deal with Finland when Xi visited the country this month. Contradictory moves The aim of China’s OBOR project is to open up and expand old Silk Road trade routes through Central Asia and on to Europe, as well as Southeast Asian maritime links through the Strait of Malacca and around India to the Middle East. The grand picture that China is painting of its ability to promote enhanced trade and diplomatic links, however, is only part of the plan, analysts say. For the most part, China is relying on its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to advance the OBOR project. Some say that contradicts Beijing’s pledge to revamp and reform these companies, which are already burdened with overcapacity, …

Along northeastern Cape Cod off the coast of Massachusetts, April doesn’t usually equate with sunshine and sandcastles. The month is mostly a time of waiting for the fog and chill to lift off the Atlantic Ocean and the tourists to arrive. But this year is a problem for seasonal businesses, whose model is built around five-to-six-month, low-skilled jobs in areas like hospitality. Few Americans are willing to fill them and now, thousands of foreign seasonal workers may not be allowed into the U.S. to take them. Changes to the U.S. temporary work visa program, called H2B, are keeping out the workers that businesses count on. For affected businesses, the financial loss could be plenty. “It could be 20 percent,” said Allen Sylvester, president of American Tent & Table, Inc., a family-owned tent rental and party accessory business in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Sylvester, who has been with the company since 1996, says it earns roughly 85 to 90 percent of its profits in five months — the region’s outdoor wedding season. Fully staffed, the company employs seven to eight Americans and 13 H2B visa workers. Normally it’s the former group Sylvester has a hard time hiring. But last September, Congress failed to renew a provision that effectively quadrupled the number of H2B visas available in 2016 by not counting returnees against the annual cap. This year, instead of potentially 264,000 visas, there are 66,000 — half allocated in the spring, the other half in the fall. Businesses in colder areas like …

At first glance, U.S. President Donald Trump and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen may have little in common. Yellen is an academic economist and veteran of Democratic administrations who is committed to an open global economy, while Trump is a real estate mogul with an electoral base suspicious of the economic order Yellen helped to create. Yet the two may have interests in common now that Trump is president and both want to get as many Americans working as possible. Since her appointment as Fed chair in February 2014, Yellen has kept interest rates low and she currently pledges to raise them only slowly even though unemployment, at 4.5 percent, is at its lowest in nearly 10 years. Meanwhile, Trump’s election campaign promises to cut taxes, spend money on infrastructure and deregulate banking, have helped propel a surge in the U.S. Conference Board’s consumer confidence index to its highest level since the internet stocks crash 16 years ago. Former Fed staff and colleagues who know Yellen said Trump’s surprising remarks this week in a Wall Street Journal interview, in which he did not rule out Yellen’s reappointment to a new four-year term next year, are not as outlandish as they may appear now that the president has a vested interest in keeping markets and the economy on an even keel. And the same staff and colleagues say Yellen may well accept reappointment, despite Trump’s criticism of her during last year’s election campaign. Many in Trump’s Republican party have called for …

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company plans to unveil an electric semi-truck in September.   Musk tweeted the announcement Thursday. He offered no other details about the semi, such as whether it will be equipped with Tesla’s partially self-driving Autopilot mode.   Musk also said the company plans to unveil a pickup truck in 18 to 24 months.   Tesla currently sells two electric vehicles, the Model S sedan and Model X SUV. Its lower-cost Model 3 electric car is due out by the end of this year.   But Musk revealed last summer that the Palo Alto, California-based company is working on several more vehicles, including the semi and a minibus.   Tesla shares rose nearly 3 percent in late trading Thursday in response to Musk’s tweet. …

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet announced on Wednesday evening that she was sending to Congress a bill that would dramatically increase the size of public pensions in the face of growing opposition to the nation’s current system. The bill would include an increase in the amount of savings held collectively, a new 5 percent payroll tax, and a corresponding boost in retirement savings. Current pensioners would see savings rise by around 20 percent, while workers currently paying into the system would see increases of up to 50 percent. “We must advance toward a truly mixed social security system, where all play their part, where solidarity comes from personal effort, where the state and employers play their corresponding role,” Bachelet said in a speech. Chile’s privatized pension plan was started in the 1980s during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and the so-called ‘Chilean model’ has been copied and adopted worldwide. But opposition to it is rising in Chile, with regular street protests demanding changes. Opponents say the payouts are meager, and they complain the pensions are managed by for-profit funds. It is unclear if Bachelet’s bill can become law. Her governing coalition is severely divided, and parliamentary elections are set to take place in November, while debate on complex bills can take years in Chile. Earlier in April, Chile’s finance minister said divisions in the government might make any pension reform impossible, and earlier this week, a major education bill pushed by Bachelet failed in committee. Under the system proposed by Bachelet, …