Briefcase

Holding off on tracking gun sales

Visa and Mastercard have decided to pause implementing a plan that activists had hoped would track firearm sales and help curb gun violence.

The payment giants said they would suspend their work on the International Organization for Standardization’s new merchant category code – which banks could use when processing transactions for gun and ammunition stores – in a series of client communications this week, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named discussing internal deliberations.

Visa and Mastercard have previously said the new system might not have had the impact that gun-control advocates had hoped. That’s because the proposed code wouldn’t offer the level of detail needed to show what customers were actually buying – making no distinction between, say, automatic rifles and safety equipment. And many politicians and Second Amendment advocates decried the proposed code as an intrusion on constitutional rights and privacy.

A representative for Visa didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The major payment networks had previously all agreed they would implement the new code, which would apply to all purchases at gun and ammunition stores. Firearm purchases at other types of retailers wouldn’t be captured.

GM rolls out buyout plan

General Motors said it’s offering voluntary buyouts to salaried staff as part of a plan announced in January to cut $2 billion in annual costs.

The Detroit automaker will offer the workers lump sum payments and other compensation based on tenure, according to a regulatory filing Thursday. The move is designed to “accelerate the normal attrition process and the resulting cost savings,” GM said.

GM anticipates as much as $1.5 billion in pretax, mostly cash-based charges related to the separation program and $300 million pretax, noncash pension curtailment charges. The majority of costs will be incurred in the first half of this year.

The buyouts come shortly after Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra cut hundreds of management jobs as the company weeded out poor performers.

Automakers are wrestling with rising interest rates and stubborn inflation that could deter car buyers going forward. GM and other manufacturers have also been cutting costs as they spend billions to introduce electric vehicles – many of which lose money initially or bring in thinner profit margins.

New jobless claims highest in months

Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits last week rose to the highest since December, driven by spikes in California and New York and suggesting some softening in what’s still a tight labor market.

Initial unemployment claims increased by 21,000 to 211,000 in the week ended March 4, Labor Department data showed Thursday. Continuing claims, which include people who have received unemployment benefits for a week or more, rose by the most since November 2021.

The level of initial claims surpassed all estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists, in which the median called for 195,000 applications. Recurring applications, which are a good indicator of how hard it is for people to find work after losing their job, rose to 1.72 million in the week ended Feb. 25.

From wire reports