Tuesday, Mar 21st
Last update06:09:52 AM GMT
Economic Glance
“This show of support by a group of large banks is most welcome, and demonstrates the resilience of the banking system,” the Treasury Department said in a statement Thursday.
The major banks include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Trust.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is laying off another 10,000 people and instituting a further hiring freeze as part of the company’s “Year of Efficiency”, the chief executive announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
The restructuring, which also sees a further 5,000 unfilled job adverts closed without hiring, comes less than six months after the company announced another wave of 11,000 redundancies. At its peak in 2022, Meta had grown to 87,000 employees globally, with a substantial portion of that hiring occurring since the onset of the Covid pandemic.
“This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” Zuckerberg wrote in a blogpost. “Over the next couple of months, org leaders will announce restructuring plans focused on flattening our orgs, canceling lower priority projects, and reducing our hiring rates.”
President Joe Biden insisted Monday that the nation’s banking system was safe, seeking to project calm after the collapse of two banks stirred fears of a broader upheaval and prompted regulators to offer emergency loans to banks to stave off additional failures.
“Your deposits will be there when you need them,” Biden said.
Despite the message from the White House, investors continued to dump shares in bank stocks. Shares of First Republic Bank plunged more than 70% even after the bank said it was accessing emergency funding from the Federal Reserve as well as additional funds from JPMorgan Chase.
U.S. regulators closed the Silicon Valley Bank on Friday after depositors rushed to withdraw their funds all at once. It was the second largest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only the 2008 failure of Washington Mutual. New York-based Signature Bank also failed Sunday.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insures deposits up to $250,000, but many of the companies and wealthy people who used the bank — known for its relationships with technology startups and venture capital — had more than that amount in their account. There are fears that some workers across the country won’t receive their paychecks.
Yellen, in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” provided few details on the government’s next steps. But she emphasized that the situation was much different from the financial crisis almost 15 years ago, which led to bank bailouts to protect the industry.
“We’re not going to do that again,” she said. “But we are concerned about depositors, and we’re focused on trying to meet their needs.
Regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank on Friday, marking the biggest bank failure since the 2008 recession and sending shockwaves across the tech world.
The Federal Insurance Corporation (FDIC) created a National Bank of Santa Clara to hold deposits and other assets of the failed Silicon Valley Bank, but the abrupt closing is impacting tech firms that face immediate effects, like ensuring employees get paid.
More than 93 percent of the $161 billion deposited at Silicon Valley Bank is not insured by the FDIC, according to a Bloomberg News analysis.
The closure will have further reaching impacts for the tech world and is spurring additional concerns for banks.
Employers added a booming 517,000 jobs in January as hiring unexpectedly surged despite high inflation, rising interest rates and the prospect of a weakening economy.
The unemployment rate fell from 3.5% to 3.4%, lowest since 1969, the Labor Department said Friday. Unemployment for Black people declined to 5.4%, lowest on record dating to 1972
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast 185,000 job gains.
The tech industry is facing a demand downturn after two years of pandemic-powered growth during which it had hired aggressively. That has led firms from Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) to Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) to shed thousands of jobs.
"Over the last few months we've made a considerable effort to rein in costs, but it simply hasn't been enough," Chief Executive Daniel Elk said in a blog post announcing the roughly 600 job cuts.
"I was too ambitious in investing ahead of our revenue growth," he added, echoing a sentiment voiced by other tech bosses in recent months.
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