The Business Times

Sarah O'Connor

With the help of gadgets and subscriptions from technology companies, we are increasingly turning our gaze on each other.

Are we on course to become a Little Brother society?

Trust in our peers could be the casualty as surveillance technology becomes smaller, smarter and cheaper

People ride their bikes down the street in Dokkum, the Netherlands. It has become increasingly common for full-time workers in the country to compress their hours into four days rather than spread them over five.
THE BOTTOM LINE

The Dutch are quietly shifting towards a four-day work week

The Netherlands serves as a case study for the advantages and trade-offs of reduced hours in the workplace

Deliveroo tells riders that “the fee for each order is unique” and is based on estimates of time, distance, the rider’s location, time of day, day of the week, the busyness of the restaurant and a number of other factors.

Dynamic wages make work a gamble

Ride-hailing and food delivery companies’ new pay models use algorithms to decide bespoke fees

job, office, team
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In defence of the second-mover advantage

In AI, the message ‘act now or miss out’ has more in common with high-pressure sales than business strategy

When Northvolt filed for bankruptcy last week, it was a blow to the story that the road to net zero will be paved with secure ‘green jobs’ in places that need them.

Why the public doesn’t buy the idea of a ‘green jobs’ bonanza

People understand that transitions are hard – politicians need to as well

One reason that workers put up with bad jobs is fear: that the next job will be worse, or that it won't last.
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Why don’t people leave bad jobs?

Giving workers a bit more security might make the labour market more flexible, not less

What might it look like if politicians compared life expectancy statistics as obsessively and anxiously as they do their GDP trends?

There is more to life and death than GDP

Economic growth is not the only way to compare how well countries are doing

It’s important in any democracy for people to know how public money is spent, but perhaps the only thing most people hear on such occasions is: “Big number, big number, big number, big number.”
THE BOTTOM LINE

People are numb to big numbers

Millions, billions, trillions – the human brain isn’t wired to comprehend information on a large scale

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