workers

Companies are replacing junior workers with AI. Now it’s time to pay the consequences

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When artificial intelligence appeared on the horizon, the first thing we thought was that it was going to retire us. Later, he was going to retire the most senior profiles and now we know that it is just the opposite: is stopping job access to junior profiles. In the past, companies competed fiercely to attract young talent, but now Gen Z has found its great rival in AI. Beginners? No, thanks. This Revelio Labs job report reveals that entry-level hiring has fallen by 35% in the United States since 2023. And it is one of many studies: this other of job offers estimates the drop in junior offers between 11 and 20% in the last year. The phenomenon is not exclusive to the United States: in Spain these data from El Confidencial They report that the Big Four are going to reduce the hiring of people under 30 years of age by between 10 and 20%. In the UK, more of the same. AI boosts productivity… if you’re the boss. The business premise is that artificial intelligence can carry out these tasks of those people with a junior profile such as documentation, testing or writing basic code. It is not that these tasks have disappeared within the workflow, it is that they have been absorbed by higher levels in a twist of efficiency and productivity: senior profiles supervise what the AI ​​does. And if, AI screws up. To the question of how many hours of work per week does AI save you? from the consulting company Section collection in The Wall Street Journal There is a clear divergence between managers and staff: 40% of workers think that they are not saving anything because even if there is a quick response, there are errors and hallucinations. When you take into account the time spent going through everything, checking and redoing, the beads are not so round anymore: this Asana studio shows that employees spend 4.5 hours per week correcting AI work. The boomerang effect. That youth encounter yet another obstacle to having a full adult life is a real drama in terms of unemployment, but this paradigm shift in hiring is also a total threat to the stability of the technological infrastructure as we know it: The illusion of efficiency. AI chops code faster than anyone else, but that raw data is misleading because it doesn’t consider side effects like validation. Operational risk. If the AI ​​does not have human supervision at each step, it can make critical errors, serve as an example when half the internet went down for the total automation of Amazon servers. Of costs and responsibilities. If the AI ​​makes a mistake and it reaches the final chain of the process, that is, delivery to the customer, it is paid. Let them tell Deloitte, they had to reimburse the cost of a report prepared for the Australian Department of Employment and Industrial Relations because it contained hallucinations. A demographic bomb. All of the above is a toll that many companies seem willing to pay for the sake of that efficiency, but there is a devastating effect on a large scale in the medium and long term: the knowledge gap. When these senior profiles retire, there will be no one who can replace them simply because you have eliminated the training ground that is experience. The figures have spoken: between 2024 and 2032, 18.4 million professionals in the United States will retire according to this study from Georgetown University. However, only 13.8 million new workers will gain access. About to explode. Part of the work of senior profiles includes mentoring and all its intrinsic benefits: there are studies that confirm that increases motivation, promotes psychological well-being and even reduces exhaustion. In short: saturation of tasks, inability to delegate and the loss of that added bonus of teaching: there are many ingredients for the recipe for burnout. In Xataka | If AI is going to leave us without jobs, in the United Kingdom they are already seriously discussing the solution: a universal basic income In Xataka | We believed that the AI ​​talent war is about engineers and developers. Actually, it’s about plumbers and electricians.

is that in two years it has fired 30% of its workers

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On Friday, January 30, the shares of the main video game companies They collapsed on Wall Street hours after Google will launch Project Genie. The story was simple: investors believed that artificial intelligence would replace traditional developers. However, that same day a data was published that went practically unnoticed among the stock market noise: a third of American workers in the sector (33%) have been laid off in the last two years. Genie appeared to be a threat, but the video game industry has been bleeding silently for two years, and artificial intelligence is not the cause of that hemorrhage, but rather the instrument that some executives see as the perfect scapegoat. The data. The magnitude of the layoffs exceeds any recent precedent. Between 2022 and July 2025, approximately 45,000 jobs were lost. The aforementioned GDC report estimates that the percentage of workers who lost their jobs in the last two years is 28% globally and 33% in the United States. Half of the professionals consulted declared that their company had made cuts in the last year. The impact was especially devastating at AAA studios: two-thirds of developers working on big-budget productions confirmed layoffs at their companies, compared to just one-third in the independent sector. Specific cases. Some examples illustrate the magnitude of the crisis. Microsoft eliminated more than 9,000 jobs despite boasting a “record year” in revenue and operating profits. Embracer Group reduced its workforce from 15,701 to 7,873 employees, a net loss of 8,000 workers that represented half of its workforce. Unity Technologies carried out six rounds of layoffs between June 2022 and February 2025. Sony closed Firewalk Studios and Neon Koi, eliminating 210 positions after the failure of ‘Concord’. And 2026 has not started better: Ubisoft announced in January the closure of its studios in Halifax and Stockholm, as well as restructurings in Abu Dhabi, RedLynx and Massive Entertainment. When the crisis started. The origin dates back to the confinements of 2020. The world’s population confined to their homes sought entertainment in video games, generating growth figures that the industry interpreted as the beginning of a new era. Steam reached 23 million concurrent users in March 2020, surpassing all previous records. Microsoft reported that Xbox Game Pass had surpassed 10 million subscribers. Console and software sales skyrocketed. The irresponsible expansion. Companies responded with aggressive workforce expansions. Electronic Arts increased its workforce by 12%, going from 9,800 to 11,000 employees between 2020 and 2021. Ubisoft added 2,000 new developers in the same period. But when health restrictions ended, revenue didn’t just stop growing: analyst Matthew Ball documents that video games became one of the few entertainment sectors whose consumption contracted (because, for example, streaming of movies and audio has not stopped growing). Ball notes that major consulting firms and investors had overestimated projected revenue for 2025 by 25% to 30%. The market is ossified. Warnings to the entire entertainment industry about the risk of over-reliance on recycled products were especially pertinent in the video game. Development costs skyrocketed as studios focused resources on sequels and remasters rather than taking risks with new intellectual properties. Furthermore, the omnipotent mobile market, traditionally considered resistant to recessions, was showing signs of ossification: according to Ball, the three main titles in each genre concentrate approximately 40% of the segment’s revenue, and 82% of the turnover corresponds to games that are more than two years old. Ubisoft and AI as an excuse. On January 21, 2026, Ubisoft announced what it called an “organizational, operational and portfolio reset.” The company’s shares They plummeted 33%. The restructuring involved the cancellation of six projects in development. But while carrying out mass layoffs and closing studios, Ubisoft announced “accelerated investments” in player-oriented generative artificial intelligence, not limited to internal tools but integrated directly into games. self-fulfilling prophecy. What Genie offers is an alibi. When a CEO contemplates “accelerated investments in player-oriented generative AI” while closing studios and canceling projects, the technology functions as a justification for financial decisions already made. The GDC survey reveals that 74% of video game development students are concerned about their future job prospects: the industry eliminates positions while its leaders invest in systems to automate work. Header | Vitaly Gariev / Shuichi Aizawa In Xataka | The Spanish video game industry has broken its turnover record. The problem is that they keep laying off workers.

China urgently needed a train station, so it was built in nine hours with 1,500 workers and 23 excavators.

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Anyone who has done a work at home will have already experienced firsthand that they know when it starts but not when it ends, something that happens in domestic works and that we also see from time to time with public works. And large infrastructures take time, although we have seen real records such as this 10-story building in just 29 hours. Of course, in China. Precisely there, in the city of Longyan in the southeast of the country, is where they have made a train station overnight. Literal. And although the work is a milestone in 2026, the reality is that this reform in record time took place in January 2018 and that left Elon Musk with his mouth openwhich had no qualms in stating that “China’s progress in advanced infrastructure is more than 100 times faster than that of the United States.” As China Central Television narratedat 6:05 p.m. the station closed and only 17 minutes later the remodeling kicked off in an action that more than a construction seems like a synchronized swimming number until 3:30 in the morning, the time of the end. A kind of “open heart operation” in public works Only nine hours for a project that, although it is true that it was not a new station from scratch, was not exactly small: it consisted of a remodeling and connection of roads between a new high-speed line between Longyan and Nanping and three existing railway lines. Furthermore, they decided to do it at night so as not to interrupt daily rail traffic. Because at 6:22 p.m., 1,500 workers grouped in seven units were executing seven different simultaneous tasks, such as Zhan Daosong tolddeputy manager of China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group, China’s leading railway construction company. To carry it out, they relied on seven trains and 23 excavators. Thus, while one group installed monitoring and signage equipment, another paved the land. The millimeter precision and rapport is such that Reminiscent of open heart surgery but transferred to public works: with workers distributed over a range of 1.5 kilometers in their assigned places and 23 coordination teams to ensure compliance with deadlines and processes. Something like this is not done overnight, but before the day of truth They did six large-scale drills to prepare. The decision to do it at night has an explanation: not to interrupt the day’s rail traffic because in fact, at 1:56 in the morning they already had the first test train accessing the new station. Because they had also estimated a verification period of three and a half hours in which three other trains accessed the facilities. At 5:53 in the morning the rehearsals were over: K297, a normal passenger train, arrived at the station. As impressive as the speed of the project, which involves enormous planning work and prior studies, was the achievement achieved: reducing the travel time between both cities from seven hours to just an hour and a half thanks to the high-speed train that travels along the track at 200 km/h. In Xataka | 100% autonomous factories where it is not necessary to turn on the light: China is already considering manufacturing cars only with robots in 2030 In Xataka | Tesla’s dwarfs continue to grow: the Model 3 is no longer the premium electric that sells the most in China Cover | CGNT

Thousands of workers were needed to build the colossal Golden Gate. Just to maintain it you need 200 people

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There are few symbols as recognizable of the United States as the golden gatethat colossal orange bridge inaugurated in 1937 that crosses the San Francisco Bay. And no wonder: 1,280 meters of bridge hanging on two 227-meter-high towers with 600 thousand rivets each. It enters through the eyes and also, it also sounds. The subject of countless photographs and an extra in numerous films and series, it is also the place chosen by many people. to end his life. The colossal construction of the Golden Gate. When the Golden Gate opened almost a century ago, it was considered an architectural landmark that combined engineering and modernity. And no wonder: the work lasted more than four years, cost more than 35 million dollars (from the 1930s) and the construction techniques were cutting-edge. However, they faced challenges such as the turbulent currents, the hurricane winds and the dense fog in the area. Not to mention its proximity with the San Andreas and Hayward fault. One of the solutions was to make the structure of the Golden Gate something dynamic and not rigid, which allows it to better deal with wind and tide (literal). In addition, it is designed so that the two towers absorb the tension generated by the passage of vehicles through the suspension cables. One of those towers had to be built in the middle of the open ocean, something exceptional at the time. High turnover and a lot of security. Although its construction is carefully documented and there is an extensive graphic archive, there is no record of how many people worked on its construction beyond the fact that there were 10 contractors with their respective subcontractors, there was a lot of turnover (note: we were in the context of the Great Depression) and that at the peak of the work there were hundreds of men working, with critical roles such as structuralists, divers, spinners to weave the cables and painters and riveters. Unfortunately, 11 people died during this imposing construction. And this despite the fact that its chief engineer, Joseph Strauss, stood out for its commitment to job security: They installed a safety net under the bridge that would save those 19 workers who became part of the Halfway-to-Hell club (halfway to hell). 200 people for maintenance. Although the exact figure is unknown precisely due to the turnover and number of contractors, there are estimates which point to figures between 4,000 and 8,000 workers who participated directly in the construction between 1933 and 1937, which seems plausible. What is most striking is that for its maintenance about 200 workers are needed among engineering professionals, metal workers, painters, mechanics, electricians, communications technicians, street and garden maintenance, among others. The maintenance team. In the age of AI and automation, San Francisco Bridge Maintenance pulls trades with a multidisciplinary team led by a captain who oversees patrol activities 24 hours a day. As a curiosity, since 1937 there have been 11 captains. As a summary, these are the main positions and their functions: Painters and metal workers. They work at height and in confined spaces. They are responsible for painting, sandblasting old paint, and repairing corroded steel and rivets. Structural Engineers: They carry out visual and sensor inspections of each of the thousands of rivets and cables, in addition to ensuring the operation of the machinery. Safety and Traffic: With a flow of 100,000 vehicles daily, accidents and breakdowns are the order of the day. It is a 24/7 operational service to avoid collapsing the city. Why so many people. As we have seen in the previous point, maintenance logistics is specialized and has a certain complexity being at altitude, it requires always being available and the environment is aggressive. Paint the Golden Gate It has its own, hence it has its own section within the bridge website. To begin with, it is not painted every so often, but rather it is painted continuously and in parts. And maintenance is selective and based on priority: it is a battle against corrosion. The combination of the humidity of the Pacific and its high salinity is a ticking time bomb for steel. Although they chose the International Orange tone because of how well it integrates with the environment and its visibility, this paint protects the steel from UV rays and humidity. On the other hand, inspections of its expansion joints and seismic dampers are frequent to ensure that it can flex without breaking due to vibrations and earthquakes. In Xataka | More than 2,000 people had committed suicide at the Golden Gate. The solution has been as simple as it is shocking for those who throw In Xataka | In 1976 Boston built its most amazing skyscraper. Until its windows became lethal guillotines Cover | Photo of Maarten van den Heuvel in Unsplash

three out of four workers have not improved their purchasing power in two years

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Salaries rise, but they give less and less. At least that is the perception of three out of every four workers in Spain, who feel that They have lost purchasing power or they have not improved it in the last two years, despite having chained annual salary increases. This leaves an increasingly widespread feeling: working serves to cover holes, but not to live better. ​In response to this perception, the majority cut back on leisure and vacations to face basic housing expenses, shopping basket and paying bills. What is striking is that only a minority consider asking for a salary increase in 2026. They don’t make it to the end of the month. The photograph left by the last InfoJobs report It is that of a labor market in which 38% of workers have lost purchasing power in the last two years and 34% say that it has remained the same. This means that almost three out of every four employees have not perceived a real improvement in their ability to save or in its purchasing power. The survey indicates that only 28% claim to have increased their purchasing power. This situation occurs especially in young people between 16 and 24 years old who are entering their first jobs, so they start from a very low previous income. The salary in Spain. According to Eurostat data The average annual salary in Spain in 2024 was 33,700 gross euros, below the 39,808 gross euros that on average registered the European Union. But the averages leave room for interpretation. If we use the data collected by the last 2023 Annual Salary Structure Survey, The median salary in 2023 was 23,349 euros, while the modal salary (the most common) was within the limits of the Minimum Interprofessional Salary with 15,574.85 euros per year. Increases that do not compensate for inflation. The InfoJobs survey indicates that 52% of those surveyed have had a slight salary improvement and 6% recognize a significant increase. Even so, only 40% declare that they have improved their purchasing power, which indicates that a relevant part of these increases has been absorbed by inflation and the rising cost of living. Among those who have received salary increases, a considerable proportion indicate that their economic capacity remains the same or has even worsened. InfoJobs summarizes this gap by noting that “perceived increases are not translating into a real match with the cost of living.” Furthermore, moderation weighs on expectations of increases in the future and they expect insufficient increases in the coming months. 69% estimate that the salary improvement will be less than 1,200 euros gross per year (an increase of 100 euros gross per month) and half do not plan to exceed 2,400 euros gross per year. The payroll goes to housing and basic expenses. The spending structure reinforces the feeling of suffocation in which 92% of those surveyed have had to cut expenses. The InfoJobs survey indicates that dwelling and the shopping basket They add up to 44% of the workers’ monthly budget. Savings represent only 10% of the salary, which greatly limits the possibility of building a financial cushion or facing unforeseen events. Between the ages of 25 and 44, a stage in which mortgages or high rents are usually assumed, housing absorbs 26% of the salary. This implies applying cuts to spending, which are concentrated mainly on leisure and free time (78%), and on vacations and getaways, with 75% of workers having cut their budget to cover the essentials. ​Dissatisfied with salary. The survey reflects that 33% of workers are dissatisfied with his salaryespecially women under 35 years of age and people with low or medium salaries. Despite everything, the percentage of general dissatisfaction decreases compared to the 39% that was registered in last year’s consultation. However, this discontent does not translate into an intention to ask for a raise. Only 17% of workers plan to ask for a salary increase in the coming months, while 83% will not do so. Among those who do not plan to apply for it, just over a third attribute it to the fact that they expect the employer to take the step (21%) or to the fact that they have already had a recent review (16%). A complicated labor market. The majority consider it difficult to find a job that provides a substantial improvement in their current salary or working conditions, which causes a certain immobility in the active search for improvement by changing jobs, as is the case. how it was happening in recent years. The conciliation conditions appear as the most difficult aspect to improve for 45% of employed people, closely followed by the possibility of accessing better salaries, which 42% see as especially complicated. According to the authors of the report, “taken together, the data reflect a labor market that workers perceive as not very permeable to improvement, where progress in salary, conciliation or professional development is increasingly complex.” In Xataka | A study has compared the gap in public salaries vs. private companies in Europe and has found a problem: Spain Image | Unsplash (Emil Kalibradov)

Meta seemed to have more faith than anyone that his metaverse had a future. 1,500 workers have just discovered that they do not

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In 2021, Zuckerberg was very clear that Facebook’s future was tied to the metaverseso much so that He even changed the name of his company.. However, the market did not respond as expected and, after accumulate million-dollar lossesrecently Meta surrendered to the evidence and put a 30% blow to the budget of the Reality Labs division. It was just the beginning. Layoffs. They overtook him in the New York Times and just confirmed: Meta is going to lay off 10% of the Reality Labs workforce, about 1,500 employees in total. Andrew Bosworth, CTO of the company and head of the division, had summoned employees to the “most important” meeting of the year. So important that for many it has been the last. Cuts. As we said, several weeks ago it was made public that Meta was cutting Reality Labs by 30%. It was an expected decision if we take into account that the division dedicated to the metaverse has accumulated 70 billion dollars in losseswhich is said soon. In this context, the layoffs were the next step and also the confirmation that Meta abandons the dream of the metaverse, at least as they proposed it years ago. New priorities. The objective behind the cuts is to be able to move investment to Zuckerberg’s new “pretty girl”, which is none other than AI. Since the beginning of last summer, Meta has signed big names and AI researchers for real millionaires to create your TBD laboratorywho is engrossed in creation of a superintelligence. In parallel, they are dedicating billions to the construction of data centers, one of them as big as Manhattan Island. They also plan to move resources from the metaverse to the AI glasses, your new reference hardware. Investors have spoken. When Meta announced that it was going to spend even more than planned on AI infrastructure, stocks plummeted even though they had achieved very good results. They were investors sending a clear message: we do not see this unbridled spending at all clearly. However, when the metaverse cuts were announced just the opposite happened and the shares rose. script twist. Meta has not explicitly admitted that it is leaving the metaverse, in fact in October of last year they were still defending it. What they have done is talk about a change in strategy and where before there were VR helmets, now there are AI glasses. It is no longer a virtual world completely separated from the real one, but rather an augmented reality powered by AI. The Ray-Ban Meta they have been a success for the company and recently announced the Ray-Ban Displayalthough We will have to wait to try them. Image | Photo of Azwedo L.LC in Unsplash In Xataka | Meta’s AI director is clear about what generation Z should do: be the future Bill Gates of vibe coding

replace 50,000 workers with an army of Terminators

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For decades, movies like terminatorby James Cameron, we were accustomed to thinking about armies of robots since a dystopian perspectiveif you will, as an exaggeration typical of science fiction, a narrative resource to talk about fear of the future. The problem is that, little by littlethat future has stopped seeming so distant, and some of the ideas that previously only fit in the cinema are beginning to appear in the real world with a disturbing naturalness. From the worker robot to the soldier. Most of the humanoid robot startups that have emerged in recent years sell a reassuring promise– Machines designed to work in factories, warehouses, hospitals or even homes, alleviating labor shortages and increasing productivity. Foundationa young Silicon Valley company, shares that ambition, but takes it to much more uncomfortable terrain: his Phantom robot It is not only designed for industrial work, but also for armed combat, with the United States Army as an explicit client. Its founder, Sankaet Pathak, does not hide the intention nor the schedule: manufacture 50,000 humanoids before the end of 2027 and turn them into an operational tool for both the civilian economy and the battlefield. Impossible calendar. They counted in Forbes that Foundation boasts an unusual development speed even by industry standards. In just 18 months since its founding, Phantom was already making real production tasks in facilities of undisclosed industrial partners, a pace comparable to that of the most advanced players in the market. This acceleration is explained by two key acquisitions in artificial intelligence and new generation actuators, but also by a recruited team directly from companies like Tesla, Boston Dynamics, SpaceX or 1X. The scaling plan is as ambitious as it is risky: 40 robots this year, 10,000 next year and 40,000 in 2027. Pathak admits which is an extreme goal, but insists that there is a “non-zero probability” of achieving it, relying on a philosophy inherited from Tesla: do not try to automate everything too quickly. Foundation The economic model. The commercial bet by Foundation It is not about selling robots, but for renting them. The company isn’t looking for dozens of small customers, but rather a few gigantic contracts capable of generating hundreds of millions in recurring revenue. If the plan is fulfilled, 50,000 rented robots between 2026 and 2027 could translate into about 5 billion dollars annuallywith an approximate price of $100,000 per robot per year. At first glance it seems expensive compared to an average human salary, but the argument is purely industrial: A humanoid can work almost 24/7 and replace between three and five people. Even discounting maintenance, human supervision and downtime, the potential savings per unit could be around $90,000 annually. All of this, of course, under a crucial condition that no one has yet demonstrated: that the robot is really as fast, reliable and versatile as a human worker. Technology that does not exist. Phantom boasts of advanced “muscles”, efficient and reversible actuators that allow it to operate for several shifts without overheating and coexist with people with a reasonable level of safety. Still, there is an uncomfortable reality in the sector: no manufacturer has yet achieved a humanoid that is fully equivalent to human performance in complex environments. Therefore, the money intelligent It discounts delays, reduces expectations, and assumes that it will take additional years for hardware and software to reach true maturity. The recent history of robotics is full of promises ahead of their time. An armed robot. It is in the military sphere where Foundation definitively breaks with the comfortable narrative. Pathak defend that an armed humanoid can be “the first body in” in high-risk situations, because a docile robot does not force the enemy to reveal itself. PhantomAccording to his vision, it must be lethal. The range of uses it’s wide: carry ammunition, perform dangerous tasks, explore buildings, cross ridges or enter caves where no officer would want to send a soldier. In fact, it is not pure science fiction: terrestrial robots have already been seen with similar functions in the Ukrainian war, although not humanoid in shape. More precise (or easier) warfare. Foundation argues that these robots could make war more precise, not more brutal. Instead of bombing or heavy weapons, a terrestrial humanoid could evaluate situations directly. The operating model would resemble that of current drones: the robot would move and navigate autonomously, but the lethal decision would remain in human hands, remote and safe. If that scheme works, armed humanoids could alter the logic of deterrence, substituting human deployments for robotic force demonstrations scalable. Pathak even arrives to affirm that an army with tens of thousands of visible robots could prevent wars before they start. The ethical dilemma. There is no doubt, the other side of the argument is just as disturbing. If sending robots reduces the political and human cost of war, it can also make it more likely. History shows that when the threshold for sacrifice is lowered, resort to force becomes more tempting. The ethics of armed humanoid robots become like this more complex than everespecially in a world where China, Russia and the United States are already developing lethal autonomous systems, even if they do not take human form. In reality, automated warfare is not new: Nazi V-2 missiles They already incorporated a primitive form of autonomy during the Second World War. What changes now is the degree of sophisticationthe distributed decision-making capacity and the physical proximity of the robot to the human combatant. Image | Foundation In Xataka | We had seen everything in Ukraine, but this is new: drones are disguising themselves as Russian soldiers, and it is working In Xataka | When we thought we had seen all kinds of rehearsals for an invasion, China makes science fiction: robots taking over an island

Having China manufacture its cars in Europe seemed like a perfect plan. Until they were filled with Chinese workers

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Manufacture their electric cars in Europe so that they can sell them without tariffs. That was the promise of the European Union to Chinese manufacturers. The objective was to consolidate the electric car industry for Europe in Europe, closing the door to proposals from China at a much more attractive price. And the result is not what was expected. Manufacture in Europe. In October 2024, the European Union confirmed the tariffs to all the companies that bring their electric cars from China. Including European ones. With this measure that applies individually to each company (ensuring that not all have received the same benefits from the Chinese State) it was intended to attract factories to Europe. Why does an electric car have less autonomy than advertised? The strategy has gone well. First, because the Chinese State ordered to stop all investments in Europe that were in the negotiation phase, initially turning off the tap. Secondly, because it is not clear that the installed factories are giving great results in terms of employment. From China for Chinese. “There are currently manufacturers in Europe that assemble Chinese cars with Chinese components and Chinese personnel: this happens in Spain and Hungary. This is not right.” The words are from Stéphane Séjourné Vice President of Prosperity and Industrial Strategy of the European Commission, in an interview for the Italian newspaper La Stampa. In it he pointed out Spain and Hungary as the two hot spots. In this second country, BYD is building its first plant in Europe to produce electric cars. In Spain we have the Chery plant in Barcelona and, under construction, the CATL battery plant in Aragon. In all previous cases, criticism has multiplied because they are not impacting the area as expected. The Hungarian case. Séjourné refers to the plant that BYD has planned in Hungary. There, the Chinese company is building a factory that should produce 150,000 cars a year (with potential for 300,000 units) and employ 10,000 workers. However, the European Union is studying if the Chinese giant is receiving covert subsidies to carry it out, paralyzing its construction. In the early phases of the project, BYD has employed about 1,000 workers Chinese which has raised the suspicions of the European Commission as to whether there is really an intention to produce wealth on European soil. some of them They staged protests last summer by claiming that they had been fired just six months after joining despite receiving promises of large salaries upon arrival in Europe. BYD is at the center of controversy because the European Commission suspects that in the future Chinese workers may be the majority at the plant, since they would aspire to lower salaries. The company, yes, He already promised that he would employ local workers to advance vehicle production. The question is whether this first hiring of Chinese personnel responds to the start-up of the factory or the advancement of a way of acting that extends over time. The Spanish case. In Spain, two factories have concentrated China’s interest. The first to arrive was the one from Chery to Barcelona. There, the Chinese company has found that it already had the necessary machinery to remove cars from it since it responds to the occupation of the old Nissan plant. However, the plans are not meeting the expected deadlines. Chery is assembling kits of cars in Barcelona. That is, the car arrives in large pieces to Spain and is finished being assembled here, so the local impact is reduced. In this case we are not talking about employment but we are talking about the fact that the network of suppliers generated is minimal. The European Commission did not like this and, in fact, the electric Omoda 5 has been delayed in Barcelona because the regulators threaten to impose tariffs on them when they understand that the added value is zero. The other point of friction is that of CATL in Aragón. The Chinese battery producer announced an agreement with Stellantis to produce there the components that the automotive giant will use in its small cars. For now, we know that 2,000 Chinese employees will arrive and, again, the shadow of what impact the new factory will have on the local labor market is looming. According to T&Eit is not guaranteed that the CATL plant will guarantee long-term knowledge transfer. More pressures. In addition to the statements by European regulators, other voices have also raised their voices. France is one of the countries that is most under pressure to create a new category of cars to make electric vehicles cheaper. Their proposal is that they meet certain size requirements… but also that production be entirely European. These days, Josep María Recasens, president of Renault Spain, returned to the charge ensuring that “we cannot allow China to come to Europe to make four plates with wheels without added value.” In his statements he asked that Europe force Chinese companies to associate with European ones so that there is a transfer of knowledge as China itself demanded from Europe when its manufacturers began to produce on Asian soil. Photo | Official Lula on Wikimedia and BYD In Xataka | China is manufacturing many more cars than the world wants to buy. And that is a foretaste of serious problems.

self-employed workers with simple invoices are spared

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As of January 1, 2026, Spanish companies will be required to implement Verifactu, the billing system of the Tax Agency to put an end to fraud. The self-employed have a little more time, until July 1, the problem is that communications are being very confusing and many still do not know if they should comply with the new regulations or how to do so. Now the Treasury has clarified something important: those who use simple invoices made by hand or with programs such as Word or Excel are exempt. Alarm and confusion. This is what reigns among the group of self-employed professionals. They count in Europa Press that at the end of October, the Treasury sent a notice to all companies reminding them of the new regulations and the fines that failure to implement them would entail (up to 50,000 euros), creating an “unnecessary alarm.” We are used to Communications from the Tax Agency are quite confusingbut with Verifactu it is being a real chaos. In statements to The Vanguardthe president of the self-employed employers’ association has criticized that “things are not done that way, they are done with a communication campaign” and admits that not even the agencies are clarified with the new system. He has requested an extension so that the self-employed are not obligated until 2027, although for now the dates remain the same. A key clarification. The Ministry of Finance, through the General Directorate of Taxes, recently resolved a query and clarified something very important: all those companies and professionals who create their invoices manually or using simple programs such as Word or Excel are not obliged to use Verifactu, as long as they limit themselves to generating and printing invoices without any additional functions. What is Verifactu?. Verifactu is a system to ensure the traceability and transparency of billing. It is not a billing program as such, but a technological system that is integrated into the SIF (computer billing systems) and guarantees that invoices are unalterable, secure and traceable. The key, therefore, is what is considered a SIF and what is not. SIF. What exactly is a computer billing system? According to the regulationsis a “set of hardware and software used to issue invoices by performing the following actions”: Generate invoices: Billing information can arrive from any method, whether entering it manually or automatically from another program. Save invoice information: well stored in the program itself, extract it in some physical format (such as paper, USB, etc.), or send it telematically (over the Internet) to another computer or system, even if that other system is not a billing system. Process invoice information: use invoice information to generate other results derived from it, such as making reports, analyzes or statistics. The nuance. The third point that defines a SIF is where the most important nuance is. In the response to the query, the General Directorate of Taxes makes it clear that the fact of creating an invoice with Excel is not synonymous with being exempt from applying Verifactu. The text says that “such spreadsheets may have data processing and conservation utilities that may imply their consideration as Computer Billing Systems.” Therefore, if you use a program like Excel or Word solely to make the invoice and store the data (digital or printed), it is not considered a SIF. If, on the other hand, you reuse the data by applying calculation or programming functions or export it to other computer systems, it would be considered SIF and you would have to use Verifactu. Image | Pexelsedited In Xataka | If you were a mutual member in the 70s, the Treasury may have to return up to 4,000 euros to you now by order of the Supreme Court

1,000 workers just to make the food

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He Icon of the Seasthe ship that holds the official record “largest cruise ship in the world”, it is a fascinating mass for many reasons. All capital letters. Not only is it extremely long (364.7 meters), extremely wide (48 m) and extremely heavy (250,800 tons), it is also a floating city capable of accommodating more than 2,000 crew members and 5,600 passengers. To get an idea of ​​what such figures mean, in Spain there are some 6,800 municipalities that do not even exceed 5,000 inhabitants. When reviewing these figures we usually automatically think of the engineers and shipyards that allow such large structures to sail the seas, but there are another challenge which is just as (or even more) complicated: feeding such a troop, mostly tourists who expect to eat and drink like true kings. floating cities. It may sound cliché, but there is no better way to define a cruise ship than as a ‘floating city’. The numbers leave no doubt. If we talk only about passengers (the crew is older), the Icon of the Seas, Star of the Seas, Utopia of the Seas, Wonder of the Seas either Symphony of the Seas (to name just a few examples) they can accommodate more than 5,000 people. Or what is the same, 5,000 mouths and stomachs to feed in the middle of the ocean. Not a simple task and one that we can understand better thanks to the last ship on that list, the Symphony, which for a time was the biggest cruise of the world. How do you cook on a megacruise? A few years ago Sophie-Claire Hoeller, a travel reporter from Business Insiderdecided to answer that question in a way quite practical: checking it herself, in situ, on board the Symphony of the Seas, of the Royal Caribbean company. He chose that ship because at that time (2019) there were still years before the delivery of the Icon and it boasted the title largest cruise ship in the world. Hoeller’s experience was fascinating. Not only because of his story, but because of the figures that he collected during his stay in the megacruisein which during the most chaotic weeks of the year they could eat up to almost 9,000 peoplebetween travelers and employees. And let’s remember: people eat several times a day. In fact, Allan Gentile, chef in the culinary innovation area, explains that there are passengers who come to eat between breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. eight times a day. Not for disorganized chefs. As a figure always says more than a long explanation, here are a few of the ones collected by Hoeller during his visit to the Symphony: at that time the ship had 23 restaurants on board in which they served 30,000 dishes daily and 1,850 people were working in charge of feeding the passengers, which includes everything from chefs to dishwashers. It may seem like a lot of staff, but the kitchen works non-stop, which is why it requires a culinary team of more than a thousand of people capable of delighting travelers while the megaship moves among the waves. Lots of people, lots of food. There is not only a lot lots of staff. To feed such a clientele, the cruise ship needs to carry a huge amount of food. To be more precise, Hoeller explains that every Saturday, before embarking on a seven-day voyage, the Symphony is loaded with dozens of tons of food, which in turn requires millimeter organization. “On average, we load 500 pallets every Saturday and we have to finish at four in the afternoon to leave Miami,” explained Jaret de Silvaresponsible for inventory. “It’s a big challenge.” To move such a quantity of merchandise they need 30 trucks and a weekly budget of one million dollars. A team of 18 people is then responsible for carefully storing the food, which is carefully organized to supply the twenty or so restaurants on the ship. As a reference, each of these food points must order their supplies from the warehouse at least one day in advance. Logistics, the key on board. The task is even more complex than it seems because not all of the ship’s restaurants (23) have their own kitchen. Hoeller explains that there are 12 specialized restaurants that do have their own kitchens on board the Symphony of the Seas, but the rest of the dishes are basically prepared in six kitchens: three focused on supplying the main dining room and another three in which food is prepared for the rest of the establishments. “The food is prepared 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” clarifies the reporter from Business Insiderwhich specifies that in total the cruise has 285 chefs dedicated to menus that may vary from one trip to another. After all, a boat full of families with children does not demand the same food as a more senior audience, a mostly Asian clientele than one from Europe. Another key: advance. Since no one wants to be left without supplies in the ocean (even less if they have paid a considerable sum to enjoy a relaxing vacation), those responsible for filling the Symphony’s holds are in charge of stockpiling more food than their guests and crew will theoretically need. The emergency ‘cushion’ they work with is designed for two days, although that figure increases to three days during hurricane season. Of course, it doesn’t come with stowing the load correctly. As in any other restaurant, the food must be in proper condition and at a controlled temperature. Do you eat so much on board? Yes. The figures are once again capital letters, hyperbolic. During a week-long cruise they devour on average 15,000 pounds of meat of beef, which is equivalent to around 6,800 kilos. And that’s not even the most impressive number. If we talk about chicken, consumption skyrockets to 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) and if we focus on eggs, demand rises to 10,000 dozen. Each day the passengers and crew also account … Read more

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