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23andMe lays off 100 workers amid shrinking demand for DNA tests
If you're skittish about DNA testing services, you're not the only one -- and it's directly affecting one of the heavyweights in the field. The 23andMe team is laying off about 100 workers, or 14 percent of its total workforce, in light of declining sales. The job cuts will focus on units responsible for growing and scaling the company. In the months ahead, 23andMe expects to cut back its work on clinical studies and focus more on its home testing and therapeutic offerings.
Ivanka Trump disrupted the conversation about women in tech
Decades of CES speaker pages and Las Vegas ballroom stages have been populated by men, some years exclusively. In 2018, CES ended up with an all-male keynote roster for the second year in a row, and the CTA faced so much backlash from tech leaders and equality groups that organizers added two female panelists at the last minute. But at CES 2020, the Consumer Technology Association is catching shade for inviting a woman to deliver a keynote address. A particular woman: Ivanka Trump, advisor to President Donald Trump. The criticism is grounded in surprise and confusion -- after all, Trump doesn't have direct ties to the technology industry. If her keynote session is an attempt to include female tech leaders in CES, organizers have missed the mark.
Facebook will help military veterans become AR and VR engineers
Facebook has launched a new resource hub to help veterans and serving members of the military improve their digital literacy and find new employment opportunities. As part of the venture -- undertaken in partnership with mentoring organization SCORE -- Facebook will be launching a 12-month career development program focused on AR and VR engineering, aimed at veterans with backgrounds in electrical and mechanical engineering, and computer science.
Google and Ivanka Trump unveil a tech job training program
Google is determined to prove that it's a force for job creation, and it's cozying up to some unexpected allies to make that happen. Chief exec Sundar Pichai and Ivanka Trump held a roundtable event where Google announced that it will sign the Pledge to America's Workers, a White House effort to expand work education, and launch an initiative that will create 250,000 training opportunities over five years. Google had technically signed the pledge through its membership in the Internet Association, but this is its first direct commitment.
Uber cuts 435 jobs in its product and engineering teams
Uber is still bleeding cash, and that's unfortunately contributing to job cuts. The ridesharing firm has laid off 435 employees in its product and engineering groups, or about 8 percent of the two divisions. The company isn't shy about the reasoning. In a statement, Uber told TechCrunch that it hired in a "decentralized way" to keep up with its startup-era growth. Now, it wants to focus on "lean, exceptionally high-performing teams." It needs to recruit more strategically, to put it another way.
Huawei preps 'extensive' US job cuts despite partial reprieve
Huawei appears to be prepared for a long trade battle despite the US government's promises of easing some restrictions. Wall Street Journal sources claim Huawei is prepping "extensive" layoffs at its Futurewei research offices in the US, with "hundreds" of people out of 850 expected to lose their jobs. Some of its China-born staff will reportedly have the option of staying with the company if they return to their homeland.
Foxconn's Wisconsin plant opens next May with fewer jobs than promised
Foxconn's long-promised factory in Wisconsin will finally begin production in May 2020, but to start, it's only creating 1,500 jobs. That's far fewer than the 13,000 jobs it once said it would add. At this rate, Foxconn will likely lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars in state subsidies, many of which were meant to reward job creation.
Amazon might start using robots to box your orders
A few weeks ago, Amazon said it will be at least 10 years before the company is running fully-automated warehouses. But partial automation is already underway. According to Reuters, Amazon is considering installing two machines at dozens of warehouses that have the potential to replace at least 24 jobs at each location. If Amazon were to roll the machines out across its 55 US fulfillment centers for standard-sized inventory, that could lead to more than 1,300 job cuts.
Amazon's warehouse robots won't replace humans for at least a decade
Are you worried your job is going to be taken by a robot? You needn't be if you work for Amazon, which has dismissed the idea of fully-automated warehouses becoming a reality any time soon. According to Amazon's director of robotics fulfilment, Scott Anderson, such technology in its current form is "very limited."
Google sets baseline standards for temp workers after outcry
Google is once again responding to complaints about working conditions and strategic decisions. The search firm is implementing "minimum standards" for temporary staff in the wake of 900-plus workers signing a letter criticizing the company's policies, including a lack of insurance and time off. As of the start of 2020, temp agencies and suppliers will have to pay Google contractors at least $15 per hour. From 2022 onward, they'll also have to offer "comprehensive" health insurance, eight paid sick days, 12 weeks of paid parental leave and $5,000 per year in tuition reimbursement.
Apple will add 1,200 jobs in Qualcomm's hometown
Tim Apple may have a new way to challenge Qualcomm outside of the courtroom: by luring some of the rival company's employees. The company has unveiled plans to add 1,200 jobs in Qualcomm's hometown of San Diego over the next three years, a 20 percent increase over previously mentioned numbers. The city will become a "principle engineering hub" for the company, with people focusing on "specialty" hardware and software projects.
Razer's job cuts signal a shift away from mobile
Razer's decision to close its game store wasn't its only cost-cutting measure. The game hardware maker has cut 30 jobs (about 2 percent of its workforce), and its mobile team appears to have been affected more than most. In a statement to Droid Life, it confirmed that it laid off "some" workers and moved others to "new projects." It still saw "great opportunities" in mobile hardware and software, and had "new exciting mobile projects" in the pipeline, but it wasn't clear whether there was a future for the company's handsets beyond the Razer Phone 2.
Google will have offices and data centers in 24 states by the end of 2019
Google is still closely associated with California to many people (and to a lesser degree New York), but it's determined to change that reputation. The company is launching a $13 billion expansion in 2019 that will give it a total US footprint of 24 states, including "major expansions" in 14 states. The growth includes its first data center in Nevada, a new office in Georgia, and multi-facility expansions in places like Texas and Virginia. This is on top of known projects like its future New York City campus.
Apple's latest expansion puts it closer to its biggest rivals
Apple is on track to become the largest private employer in Austin, Texas, after announcing plans to invest $1 billion in a new campus less than a mile away from its existing facilities there. The 133-acre site will initially be home to 5,000 new employees, with the potential to grow to 15,000. The company has also announced plans to establish new sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City and expand in cities across the United States including Pittsburgh, New York and Boulder, Colorado over the next three years, with the potential for additional expansion elsewhere in the US over time.
'H1Z1' developer Daybreak lays off staff amid restructuring efforts
Unfortunately, Telltale's effective closure wasn't the end of tough times for the game industry. H1Z1 and EverQuest developer Daybreak Game Company has confirmed that it's laying off staff as it's "optimizing [its] structure" for the future. The company didn't say how many people were losing their jobs, but former Daybreak president John Smedley had briefly claimed on Twitter (since absent) that the cuts affected as many as 70 people. There hasn't been confirmation of this number, and he has since deleted the tweet.
Sidewalk Labs reveals site plan for smart neighborhood in Toronto
Sidewalk Labs' smart neighborhood in Toronto is edging closer to becoming a reality after it revealed the initial draft plan for the site. It's proposing that Quayside should be focused around 12 mass-timber buildings, with a maximum height of 30 stories and a mix of residential, retail and commercial spaces in each.
Amazon's two new headquarters will only be half-full of tech workers
In total, Amazon has promised to bring roughly 50,000 jobs to its two new headquarters in New York and Virginia. According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, though, only half of those jobs -- about 12,500 at each campus -- will be the sort of tech-heavy roles you'd expect from an e-commerce titan with significant investments in consumer hardware, cloud services and AI. The remaining jobs fall into the include the usual corporate buckets, like HR, finance, marketing and legal, as well as administrative, custodial and support services.
Most Americans believe algorithms will always be biased
If you're convinced that many algorithms are biased, you're not the only one. Pew has conducted a survey indicating that 58 percent of American adults believe algorithms and other programming will always contain some kind of human bias. That figure is partly skewed by age (63 percent of those over 50 didn't believe algorithms could be completely neutral), but even the relatively optimistic 18-29 crowd showed some distrust, with 48 percent believing there would still be some bias.
Facebook’s new career site aims to help job-seekers hone their skills
Facebook has updated some of its career tools and launched a new website in order to help its users find new job opportunities, the company said today. Now, along with posting jobs on their Pages, businesses can also post them in Groups, and Facebook says its Mentorship tool will now make it easier for people to choose a mentor based on relevant goals and interests. Individuals will be able to share info about what they're looking for or what they can offer as a mentorship partner, and members of their Group can look through a list of that information to find a partner. The tool will also provide weekly prompts to keep mentorship pairs' conversations moving along.
ACLU: Facebook allowed gender-discriminating job ads
The ACLU has filed a complaint against Facebook with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for what it says is unlawful gender-based targeting of job ads. The organization filed the charges on behalf of three women, the Communications Workers of America and the women the CWA represents. Its charges allege that Facebook allowed employers to target their job ads toward men and it names 10 companies that it says took advantage of that feature.
