Business news in brief

Trump-noted Carrier plant starts layoffs

INDIANAPOLIS -- More than 300 Carrier Corp. employees worked their final day at the company's Indianapolis factory as part of an outsourcing of jobs to Mexico that drew criticism last year from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Thursday was the last day for nearly 340 workers at Carrier's gas furnace factory. Another 290 workers will be let go by Dec. 22.

A company spokesman said Carrier planned to serve lunch for the departing workers.

Carrier announced last year that it would close the Indianapolis plant and cut about 1,400 production jobs in a move expected to save $65 million annually.

Trump repeatedly criticized Carrier's Mexico outsourcing plan. Weeks after Trump won the election, Carrier announced an agreement to spare about 800 jobs in Indianapolis.

About 600 jobs are still being eliminated.

-- The Associated Press

Long-term mortgage rates edge lower

WASHINGTON -- Long-term U.S. mortgage rates declined this week after two straight weeks of increases. The benchmark 30-year rate slipped back below the 4 percent level.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to an average 3.96 percent from 4.03 percent last week. It stood at 3.45 percent a year ago and averaged a record low 3.65 percent in 2016.

The rate on 15-year, fixed-rate home loans, popular with homeowners who are refinancing their mortgages, eased to 3.23 percent from 3.29 percent last week.

Mortgage rates still remain historically low even though the Federal Reserve has begun to ratchet up short-term interest rates.

To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., surveys lenders across the country between Monday and Wednesday each week. The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.

The average fee for a 30-year mortgage rose to 0.6 point from 0.5 point last week. The fee on 15-year loans was unchanged at 0.5 point.

-- The Associated Press

Weekly jobless-aid claims down 15,000

Filings for U.S. unemployment benefits last week fell to the lowest level since early May, reflecting growing demand for workers in a tight job market, Labor Department figures showed Thursday.

Unemployment claims fell by 15,000 to 233,000 (the forecast was 245,000) last week while continuing claims increased by 28,000 to 1.98 million in the week that ended July 8.

The four-week average of initial claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, fell to 243,800 from 246,000 in the prior week.

Filings fell close to the lowest level since 1973, which shows that employers in the U.S. are hesitant to fire workers as finding qualified applicants becomes increasingly difficult. Analysts may pay particular attention to Thursday's report because it covers the same week when the Labor Department conducts surveys for its monthly employment report, which is due out on Aug. 4.

-- Bloomberg News

Blue Bell plant to reopen observer deck

DALLAS -- Two years after a listeria contamination crisis, Texas-based Blue Bell Creameries plans to reopen an observation deck that allows visitors to watch part of the ice cream-making process at a plant that received a major overhaul.

The pathogen listeria was found in Blue Bell plants in 2015 and linked to its ice cream. The company shut down production at all four of its plants, including the two in Texas, and stripped all products from store shelves. Blue Bell also has plants in Alabama and Oklahoma. The bacteria sickened 10 people and was linked to three deaths.

The observation deck had been the last stop on a ticketed tour of the company's main plant in Brenham. Now, consumers can stop by the observation area for free and just watch.

"It has been a popular attraction," said spokesman Jenny Van Dorf.

"At this time, there is no cost to our visitors. It is a self-guided tour that overlooks one of our production areas," she said.

The observation area is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. "until our production ends for the day, which is usually between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m."

-- The Dallas Morning News

Technology seen doing more bank work

New technologies are poised to sweep through investment banks, relieving many rank-and-file employees of roughly a third of their current workload, according to McKinsey & Co. The shift, already stoking angst on Wall Street, may take only a few years.

Cognitive technologies -- applications or machines that perform tasks once requiring human thought -- are now cheap enough that banks can deploy them across operations facilitating trades or other capital-markets business. In a report Thursday, McKinsey said automating tasks will "free up capacity" for staff to focus on higher-value work, such as research, generating new ideas or tending to clients.

"This is really starting to take steam and it's going to transform the industry over the next two to three years," Jared Moon, a McKinsey partner who co-wrote the report, said in an interview. The consultants estimate cognitive technologies will free 20 to 30 percent of employees' capacity in units processing trades.

-- Bloomberg News

EU court adviser puts cork in Aldi sorbet

It was only a one-time promotion, but using the name Champagne to give its Christmas sorbet a bit of fizz has given discount supermarket chain Aldi a five-year legal hangover.

Aldi may have gone too far in 2012 when it decided to sell the icy dessert laced with a 12 percent shot of the sparkling wine as "Champagner Sorbet" in Germany, an adviser to the European Union's highest court said in a nonbinding opinion Thursday.

The label on the sorbet packaging shows "a cork with the wire used to attach it to the bottle, a half-full glass and a beverage, probably Champagne," said Manuel Campos Sanchez-Bordona, an advocate general at the EU Court of Justice. "In the background, clearly visible, is a bottle of the French bubbly. I don't think that the significance of these elements can be ignored."

The product had a brief shelf life, but Aldi's legal woes over its choice of name have lingered. The French wine producers, called the Comite Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne, accused the supermarket of violating their protected EU right for the name. The dispute is now pending at Germany's Federal Court of Justice, which sought EU guidance last year.

Aldi representatives didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

-- Bloomberg News

Business on 07/21/2017

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