An anonymous reader shares a report: Shares of Japanese toilet maker Toto gained the most in five years after booming memory demand excited expectations of growth in its little-known chipmaking materials operations. The stock surged as much as 11%, its steepest rise since February 2021, after Goldman Sachs analysts said Toto's electrostatic chucks used in NAND chipmaking will likely benefit from an AI infrastructure buildout that's tightening supplies of both high-end and commodity memory. [...] Known for its heated toilet seats, the maker of washlets has for decades been part of the semiconductor and display supply chain via its advanced ceramic parts and films. Its electrostatic chucks -- which it began mass producing in 1988 -- are used to hold silicon wafers in place during chipmaking while helping to control temperature and contamination, according to the company. The company's new domain business accounted for 42% of its total operating income in the fiscal year ended March 2025, Bloomberg-compiled data show.

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Global hiring remains 20% below pre-pandemic levels and job switching has hit a 10-year low, according to a LinkedIn report, and new university graduates are bearing the brunt of a labor market that increasingly favors experienced candidates over fresh talent. In the UK, the Institute of Student Employers found that graduate hiring fell 8% in the last academic year and employers now receive 140 applications for each vacancy, up from 86 per vacancy in 2022-23. US data from the New York Federal Reserve shows unemployment among recent college graduates aged 22-27 stands at 5.8% versus 4.1% for all workers. Recruiter Reed had 180,000 graduate job postings in 2021 but only 55,000 in 2024. In a survey of Reed clients last year, 15% said they had reduced hiring because of AI. London mayor Sadiq Khan said the capital will be "at the sharpest edge" of AI-driven changes and that entry-level jobs will be first to go.

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Vous n’avez pas pu y échapper, vous avez sans doute vu qu’Ubisoft avait tranché dans le lard. Six jeux annulés dont un très attendu, de nombreux reports, des studios fermés, une restructuration et une annonce prévue le 12 février prochain vécue comme une épée de Damoclès par les employés, voici le fabuleux programme déroulé mercredi en conférence de presse par le géant breton. L’objectif serait d’économiser 200 millions d’euros en deux ans, et ainsi réduire les coûts fixes annuels à 1,25 milliards d’euros à l’horizon 2028, au lieu de 1,75 milliards dépensés sur l’année fiscale 2022/2023. Les investisseurs, quant à eux, ont pris acte en paniquant comme il faut, puisque le titre a chuté en bourse de près de 40 %.

D’après les économies prévues, Insider Gaming estime le nombre de licenciements à venir à environ 2 400, ce qui amènerait le nombre d’employés autour des 15 000. Cela s’accompagnera de fermetures de studios un peu partout, comme celui d’Ubisoft Stockholm, mais l’information sur les autres n’a pas encore été communiquée. Et pour éviter d’avoir à trop mettre la main au portefeuille, surtout en France, Ubisoft choisit de couper toute possibilité de télétravail, afin de dégrader la qualité de vie des salariés et les pousser doucement vers la sortie. Une relation saine et équilibrée entre employeur et employés. Un appel à la grève pour une demi-journée a été lancé par Solidaires Informatique, pour un rendez-vous moins de 24 h après les annonces, sans doute pour marquer le coup. On n’a pas trouvé de bilan de la mobilisation, mais elle devrait être suivie de nouvelles journées de débrayage, si l’on en croit les syndicats.

Du côté des jeux, l’annonce de la restructuration en cinq « maisons créatives » permet de voir quelles sont les licences qui subsistent, mais on ne peut pas dire que ça donne spécialement envie. Et surtout, il n’y a que Vantage Studio qui travaille sur un FPS, l’ancêtre Rainbow Six: Siege qui vient de fêter ses 10 ans. Heureusement, le géant breton nous annonce qu’il se focalisera désormais sur ce qui compte réellement pour les joueurs : les mondes ouverts, les GAAS (Game As a Service) et l’IA générative. Miam.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A niche retirement plan favored by freelancers is quickly becoming a hot Wall Street sales pitch, as more and more Americans look for ways to shelter a bigger chunk of their paychecks from taxes. Known as solo 401(k)s, they allow the self-employed to contribute $72,000 a year into tax-advantaged retirement accounts. That's nearly three times the maximum for typical salaried workers in the US. While they've existed for decades serving a workforce that often struggled to earn enough to max out those contributions, wealth planners like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Betterment are now racing to tap into burgeoning demand from a newer, and wealthier cohort: Post-pandemic contractors and self-employed DIY savers looking to shelter more income, grow assets tax-deferred or tax-free, all with the click of a button. The pitch is simple: Because of a quirk in the tax code, self-employed workers effectively contribute twice to their 401(k)s -- once as an employee on their own behalf and then again as a business owner making matching contributions. The platforms take care of the paperwork and clients get institutional-level tax planning and investment flexibility. More than three-quarters of America's record 36 million small businesses now have just a single employee, the owner. Cerulli Associates projects that total 401(k) plans in the U.S. will surpass 1 million by 2030, and the fastest growth is expected in sub-$5 million "micro" accounts.

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Vimeo is laying off employees around the world just months after Italian software company Bending Spoons completed its $1.38 billion acquisition of the video hosting platform. Dave Brown, Vimeo's former brand VP, described the cuts on LinkedIn as affecting "a large portion of the company." One video engineer claimed "almost everyone" was laid off, "including the entire video team," and another software engineer said he lost his job alongside "a gigantic amount of the company." This marks Vimeo's second round of layoffs in less than six months. The company cut 10% of its workforce in September, just one week before Bending Spoons announced its acquisition plans. Bending Spoons has a history of post-acquisition layoffs at companies including WeTransfer, Filmic, and Evernote.

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