ECONOMY
U.S. productivity on the rise
The productivity of American workers rose in the October-December period but at a slower pace than the previous quarter.
Growth in labor costs increased.
Productivity climbed at an annual rate of 1.3 percent in the fourth quarter, weaker than 3.5 percent productivity growth in the July-September period, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Labor costs rose at a 1.7 percent rate, up from a tiny 0.2 percent gain in the third quarter.
For the year, productivity rose a tiny 0.2 percent. It was the worst showing in five years.
Productivity has slowed significantly in recent years for reasons that are unclear.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Snapchat owner readies IPO
Snap Inc., owner of the popular disappearing-messages service Snapchat, seeks to raise up to $3 billion in an initial public offering.
That number may change based on investor demand. Facebook raised $16 billion when it went public in 2012.
The highly anticipated IPO is expected to be one of the largest since Alibaba Group went public in 2014. But Snap is better known than the e-commerce company, drawing comparisons instead to the IPOs of Facebook and Twitter.
According to IPO documents filed Thursday, Snap has lost nearly $1 billion in the past two years.
Snap says 158 million people use Snapchat daily. The fast-growing social network for the younger set was created by Evan Spiegel in 2012.
RIDE SHARING
Uber CEO quits Trump panel
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has quit President Donald Trump’s council of business leaders, according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press.
Kalanick wrote to his employees that he’d spoken with Trump on Thursday to “let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.”
After the Trump administration imposed a temporary travel ban on seven countries that have a majority of Muslim citizens, #DeleteUber started to trend on Twitter.
Kalanick responded by publishing a series of posts about Uber’s values, and said the company employed drivers impacted by “President Trump’s unjust immigration ban.”
RESTAURANTS
Chipotle’s annual sales suffer
Chipotle closed the books on its toughest year ever, with a series of food scares that took a monster bite out of its sales.
The company said Thursday that sales fell 20 percent at established locations for all of 2016. Its profit fell sharply, too, as it spent heavily on marketing and food safety measures to win back customers, all while dealing with rising food and labor costs.
And while sales trends appear to have hit bottom and began bouncing back in December, Chipotle is still not out of the clear. The company noted that it’s working on improving customer service, for instance, and that it too often is short an employee during peak lunch hours.
Compiled from staff and wire reports.