Walmart announced Wednesday that it will start allowing its workers to claim already-earned wages before their scheduled payday, in order to help its associates meet unexpected expenses. It's working with FinTech firms Even and PayActiv to offer workers a suite of financial services, including the ability to take advances on pay up to 8 times per year.
Don't get too excited: Walmart has been investing in higher hourly pay for workers, but its starting wage of $9 per hour still trails that of rivals Target and Costco, and labor advocates say that allowing advances is little help for those who simply don't earn enough money.
42% of working women in the U.S. say they have faced gender discrimination on the job, ranging from earning less than their male counterparts to being overlooked for important assignments and new positions, according to new Pew Research Center data. Only 22% of working men say the same.
Why it matters: The survey — which was conducted over the summer, prior to the #MeToo movement — reveals that the scales are still vastly tipped in men's favor.
Longtime New York Times Publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. is retiring at the end of the year, a position he's had for roughly 25 years since 1992. His son, Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger has been named the new Times Publisher.
Why it matters: The family business lives on. A.G. becomes the fifth generation-Publisher to lead the news company, since his great, great grandfather Adolph S. Ochs bought the paper and was named publisher in 1896. The company has since gone public, but the Sulzberger family owns stock that gives it control over company functions.
Late-night talk show host Tavis Smiley, who was suspended by PBS after an internal investigation led to several allegations of sexual misconduct, said he was shocked by the way PBS handled their investigation. "Variety knew [about my suspension] before I did," he said in a Facebook post.
His side of the story: "To be clear, I have never groped, coerced, or exposed myself inappropriately to any workplace colleague in my entire broadcast career ... PBS overreacted and conducted a biased and sloppy investigation, which led to a rush to judgment, and trampling on a reputation that I have spent an entire lifetime trying to establish. This has gone too far. And, I, for one, intend to fight back."
For several years, dogs have been among the biggest stars on Instagram, with hundreds of thousands of followers and enormous advertising deals. The reason? Many Instagram users trust dogs more than human models.
Why it matters: In an age where brands and platforms are radically rethinking how ads are produced and delivered to consumers, "animal influencers," as the ad industry calls them, produce sponsored content that people actually choose to follow and engage with. “People are going to get ads — whether it's banner ads, whether it's influencer ads," Loni Edwards, founder of The Dog Agency, tells Axios. "But they want to see them in a way that's going to make them smile."
Amazon has introduced high-profile experiments in offline retail in recent quarters, like the cashier-less Amazon Go, or its new brick-and-mortar book stores, but Fortune reports that Alibaba is "further along the online-to-off-line curve than its U.S. doppelgänger."
China's retail sector was in its infancy by the time e-commerce was introduced to the country during the 2000s, and consumers and retailers latched on to tools like Alibaba's online marketplace rather than waiting for or investing in an efficient network of stores.
