Human Times Middle East Edition

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Thursday 21st February 2019

THE HOT STORY

Israel crunches data on diversity The 2018 Global Diversity Report from the Commission for Equal Opportunities shows that women in Israel earn 59% of men’s salaries. The report also highlights pay gap and employment difficulties experienced by minorities in Israel including Arabs and Ethiopians. Ethiopian and Arab women earn less than 50% of the average wage, and Arab women earn around 60% of their Jewish peers, according to the report. President Reuven Rivlin said the figures “tell us about the social and gender gaps in Israel, and whether we are managing to close them. They tell us who has opportunities and who faces open doors in the workforce and who does not." He added: “Change begins with data and change requires transparent data." Jerusalem Post

LEGAL

Lawsuits surge in U.S. over website access for blind people U.S. organizations that have websites which can’t be navigated by people with vision impairments are being hit with lawsuits for a second or third time even after agreeing to upgrade their sites. The Americans With Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination against disabled people in all places of public accommodation - and most courts have interpreted this to include websites connected to a physical business. The number of website-access lawsuits filed in federal court reached 2,250 in 2018, almost three times the 814 filed in 2017, according to law firm Seyfarth Shaw. Wall Street Journal

AI used to settle court dispute In what is understood to be a world-first, a ‘robot mediator’ has helped settle a dispute in the legal system. The Canadian dispute resolution tool Smartsettle ONE settled a case regarding £2,000 in unpaid fees claimed by a trainer from a client following a personal counselling course. Mediator Graham Ross said: “Insurers might not like open bidding, which could damage their negotiation strategy, but using something like Smartsettle would allow them to bid high early, to reduce legal fees, and make secret bids.” Legal Future

Former Barclays chairman 'not aware' of £280m Qatar deal Former Barclays chairman Marcus Agius has told a court in London that he knew nothing about a deal to pay Qatar £280m in fees for helping the bank raise £7.3bn at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. The UK Serious Fraud Office alleges four former Barclays executives – Richard Boath, John Varley, Roger Jenkins and Tom Kalaris – put together two advisory services agreements in order to disguise Qatar’s demand for larger commission payments. Financial Times The Daily Telegraph The Times The Guardian

CORPORATE

Number of blocked mergers in decline A report from law firm Allen & Overy shows that the number of deals being blocked by regulators is falling. Last year, deals worth at least $52.2bn across the U.S., the EU, Brazil, South Africa, Australia and Turkey were either blocked or abandoned in the face of regulatory scrutiny, significantly below the $147bn that didn’t close in 2017. The drop-off in blocked deals may be partly be explained by companies giving up on a transaction before receiving a formal ruling from antitrust authorities. Transactions abandoned in the face of regulatory concerns but ahead of any formal ruling rose 38% to 22 last year, according to the report. Wall Street Journal

Companies need fewer mystics and more critical thinkers Izabella Kaminska criticizes today’s trend of ‘mystical’ and ‘wishy-washy’ job titles – from futurist to chief happiness officer – as a lack of corporate understanding about a company’s purpose in society and marketplace. Financial Times

HIRING

Zain Bahrain partners on youth recruitment Zain Bahrain is joining forces with Majra, a Bahraini platform for young job seekers and students. Zain said the partnership is in accord with the Zain Youth Empowerment Program that seeks the professional establishment of motivated Bahraini youth. The company will have a dedicated page on the Majra website featuring interviews with management about available opportunities, and also with Zain youth employee members about their work experience and career growth at the company. Telecompaper

TECHNOLOGY

Robots are cleaning Dubai metro stations The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has started to use robots to clean Dubai metro stations. Mohammad Hassan Al Amiri, Director of Railways Maintenance at the Railways Authority, explained that the use of robot cleaner at the Union Metro Station is part of RTA's aim to reinforce Dubai's AI strategy embodying the first objective of "Smart Dubai." Gulf News

WORKFORCE

Southwest links labor dispute to flight cancellations Southwest Airlines is to investigate whether contentious and protracted contract talks with its mechanics union are causing the maintenance delays that have led to grounded planes and canceled flights. More than twice the typical number of aircraft undergoing maintenance at one time have been taken out of service in recent days and Southwest scrapped nearly 200 flights yesterday, about half of them due to the lack of planes. Hundreds more were delayed. Bret Oestreich, national director for the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, said that making a link between what the carrier has described as an operational emergency to labor negotiations “is simply an attempt to divert attention away from the airline’s safety issues.” Wall Street Journal

STRATEGY

Ford to close its oldest plant in Brazil More than 2,700 jobs are at risk after Ford announced it will close its oldest factory in Brazil and exit its heavy commercial truck business in South America. The factory in an industrial suburb of Sao Paulo, which has operated since 1967, first produced auto models before being switched predominantly to trucks in 2001. Reuters

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

Finnish start-up launches top-of-the-range VR headset Helsinki headquartered start-up Varjo has announced its first virtual reality (VR) headset. The VR-1 device costs $5,995 and is intended for industrial use. Varjo co- founder and CEO Niko Eiden told CNBC there is strong demand for VR in professional markets including architecture and engineering. "The consumer market hasn't yet picked up as it was anticipated . . . On the professional side it's the complete opposite," he said. Reuters CNBC

INTERNATIONAL

Gender pay gap grows at hundreds of big U.K. firms BBC analysis of median pay indicates that four in 10 private companies that have published their latest gender pay gap are reporting wider gaps than they did last year. About one in ten employers have reported their latest figures so far, ahead of the April 4th deadline for the private sector. Of those 1,146 companies, the median gender pay gap reported is 8.4%; last year, the media gender pay gap was 9.7%. Meanwhile, HSBC's annual report shows that chief executive John Flint earned almost 118 times more than the bank's average worker last year, taking home nearly £4.6m ($6m) between his arrival at the London headquartered bank in mid-February and the end of December. This included a £1m-plus salary, £3m in bonuses, and £308,000 ($400,000) towards his pension. BBC News The Daily Telegraph The Times Financial Times

Estonia tells Danske Bank branch to shut Estonia has told Danske Bank to close its branch in Tallinn before the end of 2019 after a money-laundering scandal. Chief executive Thomas Borgen resigned last year after an investigation into payments of about €200bn ($226bn) which were made through the branch. The bank said many of those payments were suspicious. Interim chief executive Jesper Nielsen said the bank would comply and would also close most of its activities in Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. BBC News Financial Times The Daily Telegraph City AM

Dis-assembling IKEA Ikea is experimenting with labor marketplaces like TaskRabbit that match people needing jobs done with taskers who bid for work. TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot says "this is the future of work." Financial Times

OTHER

Waldo spotted in seconds A robot uses computer vision and machine learning to quickly spot Waldo in the popular illustrated puzzles. The robot - called "There's Waldo" - can locate the hidden character in as little as 4.5 seconds. A camera-mounted mechanical arm connected to Google's machine learning service AutoML analyzes the myriad faces on any given page to find Waldo, and will move the arm to point at him. Business Insider

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