Business Insider

The gaming-focused chat app, which once rejected advertising, now has two ad formats as it aims to turn a profit ahead of a potential IPO.

When Joy-Ann started her sales lead position at a digital marketing company in 2022, her role was completely remote. The 32-year-old, who asked Business Insider to omit her last name for privacy reasons, worked in an office until 2020, when much of the workforce was sent home amid the pandemic. For the past four years, she has worked from home in New Jersey, even after switching jobs to her current role. But in August, her New York City-based company started requiring employees to work in the office four days a week. "I knew it was coming," Joy-Ann told BI. "I had already mentally prepared myself for it." Joy-Ann's office mandate isn't uncommon as more companies end their remote-friendly policies by the day. In September, Amazon announced it would require its employees to return to the office five days a week starting in January, joining the ranks of other companies like JPMorgan, Apple, and Disney. Joy-Ann said she liked the "flexibility" work from home offered her to run midday errands and create her own routine. Still, she's been pleasantly surprised by the benefits of in-office work. Despite the benefits, Joy-Ann told BI that working in the office has not made her more productive at her job — at least not yet. Read more of Joy-Ann's thoughts on in-office work: https://lnkd.in/ehEm2pCi #careers #rto #returntooffice #officemandate

YouTube's top creator, MrBeast, has acquired a startup called Vouch, which helps creators with hiring and job postings.

Danielle DiMartino Booth, a veteran forecaster and QI Research founder, pointed to continued signs of weakness in the US job market, zooming in on a few key areas that are flashing signs of trouble. She said that more workers who once qualified for unemployment insurance are now rolling off of their benefits. Workers in most states have 26 weeks of paid unemployment benefits, but according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 21% of workers are now taking more than 27 weeks to find a new job, up 3% from last year. The average unemployment duration in the US climbed to 21 weeks in September, government data shows. The second factor is the number of part-time workers in the US, which has climbed to an all-time high and suggests that the hiring picture isn't as strong as may appear. The number of employees that usually work part-time climbed to 28.2 million in August, the highest number since the government began recording the data in the 1960s, BLS data shows. "We're not seeing these people pour into the unemployment claims pool," Booth said in a recent interview with CNBC, attributing many of the part-time jobs to the gig economy, as out-of-work Americans may turn to platforms like Uber or other services in order to keep money coming in. "Much different economy than we saw in 2007, 2008, because the gig economy has exploded in that period," she added. Read more about the possibility of a recession on Business Insider: https://lnkd.in/eq-BVUSa (Credit: Getty Images) #recession #jobmarket #unemployment #parttimework

Trying to trade around the election can backfire, but there may be an exception. A chief economist says one candidate's policies could harm the US.

Mustafa Suleyman said Microsoft and Open AI are like "siblings" who sometimes "squabble" but enjoy a good relationship with each other.

Adam Neumann's residential real estate startup Flow is getting into the shared coworking business, Bloomberg reports.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wants to cut the ratio of managers to individual contributors. That's a strong signal big manager eliminations are coming.

One quiet weekend at home, Jen Glantz started thinking about earning extra cash and began researching side gigs. She didn't have any plans, and wondered to herself if she could turn boring weekends into money-making opportunities that add a little room to her budget. She found four that she liked and calculated that some could earn her an extra $1,000 per weekend. She's going to try out dog sitting, renting my space, working events, and freelancing. Read more about the side gigs Glantz is trying: https://lnkd.in/deK_QnpQ Tell us about your side gigs in the comments. #sidehustles #sidegigs #careers

New from me: Discord is taking a softly, softly approach to building its advertising business -- having deliberately eschewed ads up until this year. The gaming-focused chat platform is now introducing video ads, its second-ever ad format. Subscriptions currently make up the bulk of Discord's revenue but Peter Sellis thinks ad revenue can become "on par" with that over time. Read more at Business Insider https://lnkd.in/d9pbhu_X #discord #advertising #gaming