Rich-world labour markets will remain strong in 2024 | TikTok Shop Has a Snail Slime Problem | The Right Way to Deter China From Attacking Taiwan

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Rich-world labour markets will remain strong in 2024 - The Economist

AFTER THE lifting of lockdowns in 2021, rich-world labour markets roared back to life faster than anyone had expected. In 2022 and 2023 they continued to strengthen, breaking records in the process. The economic outlook for 2024 is uncertain: will the post-pandemic expansion come to an end? Even if the world falls into recession, though, expect labour markets to remain strong. Finding a job will rarely have been so easy.

The unemployment rate across the rich world, at less than 5%, is at historical lows. For a broader measure of labour-market health, consider the share of people aged 16-64 who are actually in a job. This “working-age employment rate” is at an all-time high in around half of OECD countries. Even in countries synonymous with high unemployment, such as Italy and Portugal, employment rates are smashing records. Labour markets, to a greater extent than at almost any time in recent economic history, are delivering for workers, especially those on low incomes and with poor skills.

This strength confuses many economists. Wasn’t there supposed to be a “jobspocalypse”, with positions eliminated by the millions, as companies deployed artificial intelligence and robots? In fact the latest research finds that in many cases the opposite could be happening. Companies that adopt technology often end up hiring more workers, not firing them—possibly because they are able to grab more market share and, therefore, need more people to service orders. One recent paper looks at Japanese manufacturing between 1978 and 2017, and finds that an increase of one robot per 1,000 workers boosts firms’ employment by 2.2%.

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TikTok Shop Has a Snail Slime Problem - WIRED

Snail mucin, for the uninitiated, is part of a skin-care regimen that’s meant to leave faces glowing and hydrating. Yes, it’s snail slime, and it’s exactly the sort of product primed to explode on TikTok—where skin-care content is king and millions of people watch as influencers dab serums and gels and makeup on their dewey faces.

But as snail slime explodes in popularity on TikTok Shop, many are wondering if they’ve been duped. People are posting videos of two versions of the product labeled as COSRX, a Korean skin-care company, side by side and asking a simple question: Is it the right kind of slime?

In an email, COSRX said it was “aware of the counterfeit products” and that it was “taking action.” In a TikTok, the company encouraged people to buy from “authorized sellers,” but did not specify where.

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The Right Way to Deter China From Attacking Taiwan - Foreign Affairs

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The Dark Hedges are dying - The Economist

“I awoke one morning and found myself famous,” Lord Byron once said. Just over a decade ago a secluded avenue of ancient beech trees in rural north Antrim, in Northern Ireland, experienced something similar. For two and a half centuries, the “Dark Hedges” lining a narrow road were known to only a few. The trees had been planted before Byron was born. They were mere saplings when the first shots were fired in the American Revolution.

Beeches are slow to grow, but by the 20th century scores of smooth-barked giants lined the Bregagh Road, creating an atmospheric tunnel. Their thick interlocking branches twisted up to the heavens like contorted fingers. This dramatic setting drew the makers of “Game of Thrones”, a sex-and-dragons TV fantasy, who used the scene to represent the Kingsroad. Although the trees were only briefly on screen, the HBO blockbuster made them famous.

Celebrity was initially welcomed. The Northern Ireland Tourist Board promoted the attraction and put up signs to help people find them. Fans of the show poured in from around the world. But in doing so, they hastened the decline of the thing they had come to admire. Traffic jams on the tiny country road meant that cars and coaches pulled up on the banks, churning the soil to mud, compacting the earth and damaging shallow roots. The trees were potentially coming to the end of their natural lives anyway. But instead of careful management, they got Instagram likes.

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