*By Michael Teich*
Wage growth in the U.S. hit a nine-year high in August, and that may be partly thanks to innovations in tech, said a founder and CEO of blue-collar employment platform Merlin.
"Technology is by nature inflationary," Güimar Vaca Sittic said in an interview with Cheddar Friday.
Average hourly pay in August jumped 10 cents to $27.16, up 2.9 percent from last year, according to the latest employment report. August also marked the 95th straight month of job growth in the U.S. The availability of online social networking tools, combined with new opportunities created by emerging technologies, allows workers to demand higher salaries, Vaca Sittic said.
"High-tech companies are building new services and are contributing to the rise in wages. But you also have companies like ours that focus on matching hourly workers with employers," he said.
While industry giant LinkedIn focuses on white-collar jobs (banking and marketing, for example) Merlin caters to those in careers like construction and restaurant servers. The company operates with the belief that this class of workers is under-served by job sites. Construction companies added 23,000 jobs in August, and employment in the industry has grown by 297,000 over the past year, according to the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/real-estate/article/Construction-struggles-to-find-workers-23-000-13212366.php).
"Two-thirds of the U.S. workforce are working in our categories, and we don't see that going anywhere," fellow co-founder and co-CEO Borja Moreno de los Rios told Cheddar Friday.
Merlin launched in the New York City area last month.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/technologys-impact-on-wage-growth).
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
