Thursday’s business headlines

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Here’s a look at Thursday’s business headlines.

Jobless claims

Initial unemployment claims likely dipped for a fourth consecutive week last week, setting a 14-month low.

425,000 filings are expected versus 444,000 during the prior week.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of all Americans have now received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

This has in turn slowed the pace of layoffs.

FedEx

FedEx is struggling to deliver packages on time, according to industry data, as a pandemic-fueled increase of online orders continues to tax the delivery giant’s network.

From March through mid-April, about 87% of FedEx ground shipments arrived on time, compared with 95% for the similar service at UPS.

Women work

The coronavirus pandemic has been especially tough on women, who are still bearing the brunt of the demands of child care and housework.

About 400,000 more women than men have left the workforce since the start of the pandemic. The percentage of women in the paid labor force has not recovered from the steep drop in the Spring of 2020.

The Care Economy Business Council was created by the Time’s Up advocacy group, which advocates for gender equality in the workplace.

Netflix

A new survey conducted for Bloomberg by Corus shows that people are subscribing to more services than they were a year again and their budgets have gone up, too.

ViacomCBS has said consumers will eventually have five of more streaming subscriptions, up from three or four right now.

If given $50 to spend on streaming, consumers say they would choose Netflix over any other.