Amazon to hire 2,000 in New York
Amazon plans to add 2,000 new jobs in New York City, the erstwhile location of an additional headquarters, as part of continued hiring across its network of technology hubs.
Amazon said Tuesday it is also creating a combined 1,500 new corporate and technology positions at hubs in Dallas, Detroit, Denver, Phoenix and San Diego.
Amazon told The Wall Street Journal the hiring will occur over the next two years. The 3,500 total amounts to a little more than half the 6,800 open positions Amazon currently lists in Seattle, where questions have swirled over the tech and commerce giant's plans in light of the city's new tax on large company payrolls to fund pandemic economic relief, affordable housing and local business assistance. Amazon employs more than 50,000 people in the city - a tenfold increase in the last decade.
The number of open positions Amazon lists in Seattle has trended down this year, and as of Tuesday was off 40% from a recent high in early February, when it had about 11,500 listed. Openings listed companywide are down about 23%.
Airbnb readies stock offering
Airbnb on Wednesday filed preliminary paperwork for selling stock on Wall Street, undaunted by a global pandemic that has taken some wind out of its home-sharing business.
The San Francisco-based company said it submitted a draft registration statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission. It kept details in the statement confidential.
Airbnb said the number of shares in the company it plans to sell and their price hasn't yet been determined. The timing of the IPO also hasn't been set.
Airbnb, which was founded 12 years ago, has long been expected to go public. Its CEO, Brian Chesky, told The Associated Press this summer that he was working on the IPO documents when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. in March.
The pandemic initially hurt demand for the 7 million properties listed by Airbnb. Chesky has said that Airbnb's 2020 revenue will likely be less than half of what the company booked last year.
In May, Airbnb cut 1,900 employees, or around 25% of its workforce. But demand has rebounded some as some travelers see home rentals as safer during the pandemic than crowded hotels. On July 8, the company said guests booked more than 1 million nights' worth of future business; it was the first time that threshold had been reached since March 3.
Lowe's sales up 35% in quarter
Comparable store sales in the U.S. surged 35.1% at Lowe's and online orders more than doubled with Americans spending much more time at home during the pandemic.
The report comes one day after Home Depot reported similarly explosive sales.
Revenue for the three months ended July 31 climbed to $27.3 billion from $21 billion, the company said Wednesday, far better than the $24.85 billion analysts expected according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.
Online sales soared 135%, while same-store sales, including those outside the U.S., rose 34.2%.
CEO Marvin Ellison said in a prepared statement that customers seemed mostly focused on repair and maintenance of their homes.
Lowe's earned $2.83 billion, or $3.74 per share, in the quarter. Removing restructuring costs, earnings were $3.75 per share. That's better than the $3.03 per share Wall Street expected.