JPMorgan Chase requires all workers to return to office five days a week
JPMorgan Chase is summoning all staff back to the office, becoming the latest corporate giant to call time on era of remote and hybrid working sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.The US’s largest bank, which has some 316,000 employees worldwide, announced on Friday that all workers on hybrid work schedules will be required to return to the office five days a week from March.Five years after Covid-19 emptied offices across much of the world almost overnight, prominent employers are now seeking to draw a line under a prolonged period of hybrid work and draw staff back to their desks full-time.While leading Wall Street firms have led the charge, the debate over the merits and pitfalls on remote work – for employers, employees, customers and communities – continues across multiple industries.Amazon required employees to return to the office five days a week from last week.
“When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” Andy Jassy, its CEO, said.Few top executives have been more vocal in making the case for working from the office than Jamie Dimon, the veteran CEO of JPMorgan, who – as early as 2021 – sought to restore pre-pandemic working habits.“And everyone is going to be happy with it,” he told a Wall Street Journal event that year.“And yes, the commute – you know, people don’t like commuting.But so what?”Even before Friday’s announcement, more than half of employees at JPMorgan had already been required to work from the office full-time.
In an internal memo to staff, seen by the Guardian, Dimon and other executives acknowledged that “some of you prefer a hybrid schedule” and said they “respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision”.“We are now a few years out of the pandemic and have had the time to evaluate the benefits and challenges of remote and hybrid working,” they wrote.“We feel that now is the right time to solidify our full-time in-office approach.“We think it is the best way to run the company.As we’ve discussed before, the benefits of working together in person are substantial and irreplaceable, and as we spend more time together, the more advantages we gain.
”
Pound and UK bonds fall after strong US jobs report; UK gas storage levels are ‘concerningly low’ – as it happened
Newsflash: the US economy added many more jobs than expected last month, a development that has hammered the pound.Non-farm payrolls rose by 256,000 in December, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported today. That smashes forecasts of a 160,00 increase, and has pulled the US unemployment rate down to 4
Fears over UK borrowing costs as US jobs figures prompt bond market volatility
Concerns over the UK government’s borrowing costs were revived on Friday after stronger than expected US jobs figures triggered volatile conditions in global financial markets.In an accelerating global bond market sell-off, investors warned that the UK was particularly exposed amid growing fears over stubbornly high inflation and higher for longer interest rates.Markets are no longer fully pricing in two Bank of England base rate cuts in 2025 and research out on Friday found that almost 700,000 UK homeowners are facing an increase in mortgage costs when their fixed-rate deals end this year.At the end of a turbulent week in global markets, bond yields rose sharply for governments worldwide, before falling back, after the last jobs report of the Biden administration showed the US labour market grew strongly in December.The number of new jobs added in the world’s largest economy accelerated to 256,000, up from 227,000 in November, easily beating expectations of a smaller increase
Rachel Reeves faces another anxious week of second-guessing the City
Rachel Reeves intended to spend January burnishing her reputation on the global stage with trips to Beijing and Davos, and flipping the focus from her £40bn tax-raising budget to Labour’s plans to rekindle economic growth.Instead, the chancellor was reduced to watching anxiously, as a sell-off swept through government bond markets, and sterling came under intense pressure as a result.There was little new data on this side of the Atlantic to justify the market moves. US bond yields have been drifting upwards, as investors guess that inflation will remain higher for longer than previously thought.Part of the step up in borrowing costs in the UK, after yields – in effect the interest rates – on 30-year government bonds, or gilts, hit their highest level since May 1998, echoed the US
Why have Britain’s energy costs soared and what does it mean for Labour?
A rise in electricity costs this week has raised fears that officials operating Great Britain’s power market could be held to “ransom” by owners of gas power plants during cold, windless days in order to keep the lights on. Here, we look why costs have increased sharply, the trading rules for plants and the implications for Labour’s clean power ambitions.Britain’s energy grid has becoming increasingly dominated by wind power, which reached new records for clean power generation last year. But the grid operator was forced to pay more than £20m to safeguard Britain’s electricity supplies on Wednesday when high demand for electricity combined with low wind speeds, increasing the reliance on gas power plants.Industry experts believe that costs could reach similar levels on Friday as freezing, windless weather drives prices in the UK’s wholesale electricity market higher
Legal fight over €2.5bn worth of aircraft stuck in Russia plays out in Dublin
Sitting in a nondescript building near the high court in Dublin, about 40 cloaked barristers have gathered almost daily since June last year. At stake is €2.5bn (£2.1bn) worth of aircraft stranded in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.Behind multiple screens and a mountain of warehouse boxes they are fighting to determine who should pay for the losses – the aircraft lessors or the several insurance companies, including Lloyd’s, AIG and Chubb
US job market soars past expectations in last report before Trump retakes White House
The US labor market expanded strongly in the last jobs report of the Biden administration, according to new data released on Friday.The number of new jobs added to the economy accelerated to 256,000 in December, up from 227,000 in November, soaring past expectations. The labor market last month was bolstered by new jobs in healthcare, retail and government.As the final jobs report of his administration, it’s a blowout for Joe Biden, who struggled to rally support around his economic agenda despite the economy strengthening after the pandemic.In a statement, the US president celebrated the new data and said that his administration created 16
Americans stocking up on foreign goods before Trump tariffs: ‘a sense of urgency’
How could Trump’s second term affect DEI initiatives in the US?
TikTok ban: supreme court appears inclined to uphold law that could see app barred in US – as it happened
Let’s teach teenagers how to use smartphones responsibly | Letters
Why Mark Zuckerberg turned to Dana White to secure Maga’s favor | Karim Zidan
England’s Lauren Filer: ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone, but to get a few helmets is fun’