Chattanooga Airport wins sustainability award
Chattanooga Airport has won a national Newsweek Future of Travel Award for its ongoing sustainability efforts and environmental stewardship.
The awards recognize those who are actively creating a travel industry for the future focused on adaptable, sustainable, responsible and innovative solutions, particularly as the industry recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.
“It is a tremendous honor to be selected for this award among hundreds of nominees,” said Terry Hart, the airport’s CEO. “As a sustainability leader in our community and among airports across the country, we are committed to being good stewards of our natural assets and encourage other players in the travel industry to explore how they can pursue new environmental goals.”
In the Newsweek feature, Zach Honig, The Points Guy Editor at Large and award panelist, noted the airport’s solar farm and EV charging stations.
“It may not be the country’s largest or most amenity-packed airport, but there’s no question that Chattanooga Airport has made sustainability a top priority,” he said.
Wells Fargo faces $250 million in fines
Wells Fargo has been fined $250 million by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for “unsafe or unsound practices” related to the bank’s home lending business, according to the bank and the agency Thursday.
The OCC, Wells Fargo’s top federal banking regulator, imposed the penalty on the bank for misconduct “related to material deficiencies regarding the bank’s loss mitigation activities” and violations of a 2018 consent order issued by the agency, according to OCC documents.
The 2018 order required the bank to take a variety of actions to account for deficiencies in its risk management program, including creating a new risk management plan and forming an independent committee to evaluate its progress. The order addressed misconduct related to mortgage and auto loans, among other violations.
“Building an appropriate risk and control infrastructure has been and remains Wells Fargo’s top priority,” Charlie Scharf, Wells Fargo’s CEO, said in a statement. “The OCC’s actions today point to work we must continue to do to address significant, longstanding deficiencies.”
The OCC also issued a cease and desist order against Wells Fargo on Thursday.
UPS hires 100,000 for holiday season
UPS is hiring 100,000 seasonal workers as it prepares for the busy holiday shipping period.
That includes nearly 2,340 positions in Atlanta.
The shipping giant said it expects an increase in package volume starting in October and continuing through January.
The hiring surge comes as many companies are facing challenges finding enough employees to staff their operations amid a national worker shortage that has arisen as businesses ramp up work. UPS is looking to hire roughly the same number of workers as it hired last year for the holiday season.
The company plans to give many applicants job offers within 30 minutes of applying. Those interested can apply at upsjobs.com.
The openings are for full-time and part-time seasonal jobs for package handlers, drivers, driver helpers and people who can drive their own vehicles to deliver packages. Many of the package handler jobs pay $15 an hour, with higher pay in some other parts of the country.
About a third of seasonal package handlers at UPS were later hired into a permanent job, according to the company.
UPS said it “encourages all candidates applying for a seasonal job to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.” The company is requiring vaccines for employees returning to work at its headquarters and other office buildings, but doesn’t have the same requirement for frontline workers.
Wholesale inflation up 8.3% in August
Inflation at the wholesale level climbed 8.3% last month from August 2020, the biggest annual gain since the Labor Department started calculating the 12-month number in 2010.
The Labor Department reported Friday that its producer price index – which measures inflationary pressures before they reach consumers – rose 0.7% last month from July after increasing 1% in both June and July.
Inflation has been stirring as the economy recovers from last year’s brief but intense coronavirus recession. Supply chain bottlenecks and a shortage of workers have pushed prices higher. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has called the price spikes temporary and has warned of the dangers of the central bank raising its benchmark interest rate (now near zero) prematurely, potentially stalling the economy’s comeback.
“Since the pandemic, supply chains have never been the same and likely won’t normalize for at least six months,” said a report by Contingent Macro Advisors. “”Only then will we (and, more importantly, the Fed) get a true sense of the trend rate of producer inflation.