Mapco plans hiring fair at all stores Saturday
The convenience store chain Mapco is conducting a National Hiring Day at more than 330 stores across the Southeast on Saturday, offering in-person interviews and information from store managers about work opportunities with the Brentwood, Tennessee-based gas station retailer.
The hiring event includes all 15 of the Mapco stores in the Chattanooga area and comes after Mapco was recognized earlier this week as a 2022 Top Workplace USA by the employee research organization Energage, based on workplace surveys with most of Mapco’s 3,200 workers.
“Mapco is proud to provide a workplace that puts our team members on our journey to happy guests, creates exciting career opportunities, and offers unparalleled flexibility,” Frederic Chaveyriat, chief executive officer of Mapco, said in an announcement of the Top Workplace award.
Data hack at News Corp. could involve China
News Corp, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, said Friday that it had been hacked and had data stolen from journalists and other employees, and a cybersecurity firm investigating the intrusion said Chinese intelligence-gathering was believed behind the operation.
The Journal, citing people briefed on the intrusion, reported that it appeared to date back to February 2020 and that scores of employees were impacted. It quoted them as saying the hackers were able to access reporters’ emails and Google Docs, including drafts of articles.
News Corp., whose publications and businesses include the New York Post and Journal parent Dow Jones, said it discovered the breach on Jan. 20. It said customer and financial data were so far not affected and company operations were not interrupted.
But the potential impact on news reporting and sources was a serious concern. News organizations are prime targets for the world’s intelligence agencies because their reporters are in constant contact with sources of sensitive information. Journalists and newsrooms from Mexico and El Salvador to Qatar, where Al-Jazeera is based, have been hacked with powerful spyware.
California gas utility fined for lobbying against codes
A major California gas utility must pay the state nearly $10 million and reimburse customers money it improperly spent on work related to the development of energy efficient building codes.
The penalties that Southern California Gas Company faces were handed down Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission.
The commission, which regulates California’s major utilities, in 2018 prohibited the utility from spending any ratepayer money on advocacy work related to building codes after it’s internal watchdog found the utility fought standards designed to make homes and businesses more energy efficient.
Between June 2018 and January 2021, SoCalGas continued to send employees and consultants to participate in workshops, conference calls and meetings about the development of new state and federal building standards and also withheld key information from the commission, the ruling said.
The utility showed “profound, brazen disrespect for the commission’s authority,” the commission wrote in its ruling.
Christine Detz, a spokeswoman for the utility, said in a statement that the utility was reviewing the decision and looked forward to “further engagement on this issue.”
Stock market mixed after strong job gains
Wall Street closed out a mostly upbeat week for stocks Friday with a mixed finish for the major indexes and a surge in Treasury yields after a blowout U.S. jobs report raised investors’ expectations that the Federal Reserve may soon start raising interest rates sharply.
The S&P 500 settled for a 0.5% gain after swinging between a 0.6% drop and a 1.4% increase. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1% after a last-minute burst of selling. The Nasdaq composite rose 1.6%. The three indexes posted a weekly gain for the second week in a row.
The latest monthly jobs data was a key focus for investors. The Labor Department said employers added 467,000 jobs last month, triple economists’ forecasts. Some economists were even expecting a loss of jobs amid January’s surge in coronavirus infections because of the omicron variant.
The stronger-than-expected data seems to lock in the Fed’s pivot toward fighting inflation by raising rates and making other moves that would ultimately act as a drag on markets. A 13.5% gain for online retail giant Amazon after the company delivered a strong earnings report helped lift the S&P 500, even though more stocks fell than rose in the benchmark index.
“Until you get a more set-in-stone picture for what tightening will be from the Fed, you should expect volatility to be similar to where we’ve been the last two weeks,” said Matt Stucky, senior portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth.
— Compiled by Dave Flessner
