How Contracting Work Became a Race to the Bottom

How Contracting Work Became a Race to the Bottom

Ben Whelan is not the kind of carpenter to wax poetic about the joys of framing a wall or redoing a roof. Like a lot of men he knows, he started working in residential construction as a teenager because it was a reliable way to earn money. But he has …

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India Is on a Hiring Binge That Trump’s Tariffs Can’t Stop

India Is on a Hiring Binge That Trump’s Tariffs Can’t Stop

In India’s most advanced cities, American companies are racing to set up more and bigger offshore campuses: fully staffed offices with high-skilled Indian professionals, performing functions vital to global business. The concentration is most stark in bits of Bengaluru. Apul Nahata of RapidAI, a Silicon Valley-based medical technology company that …

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How Trump’s Crackdown Is Drastically Driving Down Migration

How Trump’s Crackdown Is Drastically Driving Down Migration

Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are down to their lowest level in decades. Once-crowded migrant shelters are empty. Instead of heading north, people stranded in Mexico are starting to return home in bigger numbers. The border is almost unrecognizable from just a couple of years ago, when hundreds of …

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Why Maids Keep Dying in Saudi Arabia

Why Maids Keep Dying in Saudi Arabia

Feith Shimila Murunga says her boss groped, beat and raped her. Mary Wanjiru Nyambura says she was thrown from a balcony. Winfridah Kwamboka never even made it back home. East African leaders and Saudi royals are among those profiting off a lucrative, deadly trade in domestic workers. By Abdi Latif …

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Undocumented Workers, Fearing Deportation, Are Staying Home

Undocumented Workers, Fearing Deportation, Are Staying Home

The railroad tracks that slice through downtown Freehold, N.J., used to be lined by dozens of men, waiting for work. Each morning, the men — day laborers, almost all from Latin America and undocumented — would be scooped up by local contractors in pickup trucks for jobs painting, landscaping, removing …

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Angela Merkel Is Retired. But She’s Still on the Ballot.

Angela Merkel Is Retired. But She’s Still on the Ballot.

A chorus of criticism greeted Friedrich Merz, the favorite to become Germany’s chancellor, last month when he broke a taboo against working with a hard-right party to pass legislation. But it was a lone voice of dissent that rocked the country’s political scene: Angela Merkel, the once-beloved former chancellor, who …

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U.S. Hiring Slowed to 143,000 Jobs in January

U.S. Hiring Slowed to 143,000 Jobs in January

Can a labor market be hot and cool at the same time? That’s the picture painted by the latest federal hiring figures, which show a step down in job creation last month — as well as a drop in joblessness. Employers added 143,000 jobs in January, slightly fewer than expected, …

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