Walmart drops grocery delivery partner
Walmart Inc. has parted ways with one of its grocery delivery partners, the Bentonville retailer confirmed Tuesday.
Deliv, a Silicon Valley logistics firm, was part of a pilot program Walmart began in 2017 "to understand how the Walmart grocery delivery model would work with a scheduled platform," Walmart spokesman Molly Blakeman said in an emailed statement. She said Deliv served three Walmart stores in one market.
"As with any pilot, the intent is to learn and [we] ultimately came to the conclusion that Deliv's platform was not the best fit for our program," Blakeman said.
Deliv was one of Walmart's first partners in testing "last-mile" delivery using third-party couriers. The Bentonville retailer had scrapped previous partnerships with ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft, as well as an attempt to have its own employees make deliveries.
Walmart still works with six companies to provide same-day grocery delivery, Blakeman said. The program is offered at 800 stores in 100 metro areas, she said, and will expand to another 800 stores this year.
-- Serenah McKay
FedEx Logistics adding Memphis jobs
MEMPHIS -- FedEx Logistics is establishing a new headquarters in downtown Memphis that's set to include nearly 700 jobs.
FedEx Logistics President and Chief Executive Officer Richard W. Smith and Gov. Bill Lee told reporters Tuesday that the branch of package shipping giant FedEx Corp. is moving into a building formerly occupied by the Gibson Guitar factory.
Smith said about 350 of the 680 jobs will be new positions. He said the rest will be workers moved from other locations after operations are consolidated in its new spot just steps from historic Beale Street and across from the FedExForum sports arena.
FedEx Logistics plans to move into the building in April 2020. It joins AutoZone, ServiceMaster and First Tennessee Bank as large businesses with headquarters in downtown Memphis.
Formerly known as FedEx Trade Network, FedEx Logistics provides air and ocean freight forwarding, specialty transportation and supply and e-commerce services. It employs about 22,000 people.
Memphis-based FedEx Corp. is the city's largest private employer, with about 30,000 people working in different branches of the company. Worldwide, FedEx Corp. employs about 450,000 people.
-- The Associated Press
Fed chairman says rural areas need aid
ITTA BENA, Miss. -- Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell traveled Tuesday to a historically black university in the Mississippi Delta to deliver a message that the nation's prosperity has not been felt in many such areas around the country.
Powell said that many rural areas had been left out and needed special support, such as access to affordable credit to start small businesses and high-quality education to train workers.
In his comments, Powell did not address the future course of interest rates or the Fed's decision last month to announce that it planned to be "patient" in its future interest rate increases. That decision triggered a stock market rally from investors worried that the Fed was in danger of pushing rates up so much that they could spark a recession.
Addressing the current economy, Powell said that economic output remained solid and he did not feel that the possibility of a recession "is at all elevated." He noted that unemployment is currently near a 50-year low.
"We know that prosperity has not been felt as much in some areas, including many rural places," Powell said in an address to a conference on economic development at Mississippi Valley State University. "Poverty remains a challenge in many rural communities."
-- The Associated Press
California will abandon $77B rail plan
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that he's abandoning a $77 billion plan to build a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco and will focus instead on completing a 119-mile segment in the state's agricultural heartland.
Voters approved a ballot measure in 2008 calling for the linking of Northern and Southern California, a rail project initially estimated to cost $33 billion and be completed in 2020. Subsequent estimates more than doubled the cost and pushed the timeline to 2033.
"Let's be real," Newsom said in his first State of the State address. "The current project, as planned, would cost too much and, respectfully, take too long. There's been too little oversight and not enough transparency."
Newsom pledged to finish the segment already under construction through California's Central Valley. He rejected the idea critics have raised that it will be a "train to nowhere" and said it can help revitalize the economically depressed region.
While that construction continues, Newsom said, the state will conduct environmental reviews on the entire Los Angeles to San Francisco route and push for more federal and private money to connect the valley to the state's economic powerhouses, though he didn't say how.
-- The Associated Press
Business on 02/13/2019