Vanishing salary bumps for switching

It used to pay to switch jobs. Now it doesn’t. The salary difference between those who stay in their roles and those who change jobs has collapsed to its lowest level in 10 years in the US, according to the latest federal data. Job stayers increased their wages by about 4.6pc in January and February. Meanwhile, those who switched jobs received only slightly more at 4.8pc. That gap has narrowed considerably since the start of 2023, when job switchers could fetch an average salary bump of 7.7pc, compared with job stayers’ 5.5pc. Even in the tech industry, more people are hanging on to the job they have. Workers who negotiated their salaries during the pandemic when the sector drove big pay increases, especially at high-growth tech firms, aren’t likely to find a new job for more money than they are already making.

(Adapted from “Job Seekers Hit Wall Of Salary Deflation,” by Katherine Bindley and Lynn Cook, published on March 16, 2025, by the Wall Street Journal)

Avocados facing tariffs

These days, the average American devours about nine pounds of avocados a year. If that sounds like a lot of avocados, that’s because it is. In the 1970s, it was less than one pound. In the 1990s, it was still less than two pounds. Even since 2000, America’s national avocado consumption has quadrupled. And the reason avocados have exploded in the US is that most of them are no longer grown in the US. Americans developed such a voracious appetite for this versatile fruit that the US now annually brings in nearly 3bn pounds of avocados. In

fact, 90pc of the avocados that Americans eat are imported — and close to 90pc of those imports come from Mexico. Recently, this fruit that owes its success to free trade has found itself on the front lines of a trade war and facing possibly 25pc tariffs.

(Adapted from “Why America Now Eats A Crazy Number of Avocados,” by Ben Cohen, published on March 7, 2025, by the Wall Street Journal)

The next EV superpower

In a scrappy office office that is more startup than ivory tower, Yossapong Laoonual, honorary chairman of the Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand, strikes a bullish tone. Clinging to the internal-combustion engine is “like doubling down on horse-drawn carriages long after motorised vehicles became the standard”, he says. A stroll around Mr Yossapong’s campus at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi in Bangkok makes such optimism seem entirely natural. Three electric buses sit beside a charging point. Signs outline the engineering college’s carbon-neutrality plan. Thailand is betting big on the manufacture of electric vehicles. By fostering investment relatively early, the thinking goes, they can become crucial production centres, with spillover benefits such as a reduction in deadly air pollution. All three countries face similar risks, and Thailand has been the most aggressive of the trio so far. But success is far from assured, and vast sums are at stake.

(Adapted from “Where Will Be The Next Electric-Vehicle Superpower,” by The Economist, published on March 18, 2025, by The Economist)

Power of reputation

If you had to define the indispensable power of a leader, which would you pick? Would it be probing intelligence? Boundless energy? Or perhaps just being lucky? One ability may not come to mind for many, but really should. For if there is a talent that every boss needs to master, it’s the ability to say the same thing over and over and over again without seeming bored. Repetition is a talent that every boss needs to master. It is partly a function of time constraints: most bosses are too busy to craft their messages from scratch every time. But mainly it’s to do with the way that people remember things. Repetition makes things stick, as every schoolchild knows, and helps persuade people that something is correct, a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect.

(Adapted from “The Importance Of Repetition In The Workplace,” by The Economist, published on March 13, 2025, by The Economist)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, March 24th, 2025