Finanzas

THE streets of Beijing are thronged with two-wheeled contraptions. Some appear to be conventional petrol mopeds but as they zoom through red lights at pedestrian crossings their eerie silence and lack of exhaust reveals them as electric. Executives in suits cruise by on electric kick-scooters, looking like big kids on their way to school, though travelling much more enthusiastically. Electric bicycles, hacked together with a battery strapped to the frame and wired to a back-wheel hub containing a motor, crowd the edges of roads.

China’s cities are at the forefront of a quiet swarm of electric two-wheeled vehicles. Millions now roam their centres. This transformation of urban mobility is also happening in the West, albeit with a notable addition that has yet to take off in China: firms that rent out electric kick-scooters. These are taking many American cities by storm and are arriving in Europe.

In the bike-mad Netherlands nearly one in three newly bought bikes last year was electric,…Continue reading

The yacht-sharing market could be this big

ONE of the busiest times of the year at Arzal marina on the coast of western France is a wooden sailing-boat festival in early summer. Hundreds of enthusiasts join Breton dances on the quayside, but as usual most of the 1,000-or so yachts, catamarans, day-sailers and motor-cruisers remain tied to the pontoons.

Few boat-owners make regular use of their expensive assets. By one estimate, a French yacht slips its moorings on average for just ten days a year, and for America’s 12m recreational boats, typical annual usage is two weeks. Meanwhile, would-be sailors have had few options, beyond pricey short charters.

Marine versions of property-sharer Airbnb or ride-sharer BlaBlaCar are trying to match the two. In Europe a French firm founded in 2013 by Jeremy Bismuth and Edouard Gorioux sets the pace. Click&Boat has 70 staff crammed onto a barge, its headquarters, on the Seine in Paris. They manage bookings for a fleet…Continue reading

WANT a job with a successful multinational? You will face lots of competition. Two years ago Goldman Sachs received a quarter of a million applications from students and graduates. Those are not just daunting odds for jobhunters; they are a practical problem for companies. If a team of five Goldman human-resources staff, working 12 hours every day, including weekends, spent five minutes on each application, they would take nearly a year to complete the task of sifting through the pile.

Little wonder that most large firms use a computer program, or algorithm, when it comes to screening candidates seeking junior jobs. And that means applicants would benefit from knowing exactly what the algorithms are looking for.

Victoria McLean is a former banking headhunter and recruitment manager who set up a business called City CV, which helps job candidates with applications. She says the applicant-tracking systems (ATS) reject up to 75% of CVs, or résumés, before a human sees them. Such systems…Continue reading

Brian Krzanich, una de las figuras más influyentes en la industria tecnológica, tuvo una relación consentida con la subordinada, algo prohibido por las normas de la compañía

El ministerio público acusa de corrupción entre particulares al expresidente de la entidad

El ministerio público acusa de corrupción en los negocios al expresidente de la entidad

El actividad irregular tiene un coste de cerca de 70.000 millones para las arcas públicas. Madrid y las forales, donde menos trabajo en b hay; Andalucía, Extermadura o Castilla-La Mancha, donde hay más

José María Roldán, presidente de la patronal, dice que el sector paga más impuestos que otros, aunque no augura una subida del precio del crédito

Piratas informáticos se hacen con divisas virtuales por valor de más de 27 millones de euros de la casa de cambio Bithumb

La ministra de Hacienda, María Jesús Montero, abordará la rebaja fiscal a compresas y tampones «fundamentalmente por razones de discriminación»