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Massive crypto lender Genesis Global Trading Inc. laid off 30% of its staff and is considering filing for bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the matter, the latest sign of financial turmoil at the crypto lender, the Wall Street Journal reported. The layoffs weren’t confined to one department and were across the company, some of the people said. Genesis has 145 employees left after Thursday’s layoffs. Genesis is working with investment bank Moelis & Co. to evaluate its options for the future, including a potential chapter 11 filing, said some of the people. The crypto lender has become the latest digital asset firm to struggle for survival. Last year was marked by a series of crypto bankruptcies as the Federal Reserve boosted interest rates, deflating the most speculative investments. Blowups in the little-regulated sector trickled down to other companies, demonstrating the interconnectedness of the nascent industry. The Fed has signaled it will continue raising rates. Investors are bracing for more pain in crypto. Genesis suffered steep losses from loans it supplied to the now-defunct trading firm Alameda Research and crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Both Alameda and Three Arrows filed for bankruptcy last year.

In a far-reaching move that could raise wages and increase competition among businesses, the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday unveiled a rule that would block companies from limiting their employees’ ability to work for a rival, the New York Times reported. The proposed rule would ban provisions of labor contracts known as noncompete agreements, which prevent workers from leaving for a competitor or starting a competing business for months or years after their employment, often within a certain geographic area. The agreements have applied to workers as varied as sandwich makers, hairstylists, doctors and software engineers. Studies show that noncompetes, which appear to directly affect roughly 20 percent to 45 percent of U.S. workers in the private sector, hold down pay because job switching is one of the more reliable ways of securing a raise. Many economists believe they help explain why pay for middle-income workers has stagnated in recent decades. Other studies show that noncompetes protect established companies from start-ups, reducing competition within industries. The arrangements may also harm productivity by making it hard for companies to hire workers who best fit their needs. The public will be allowed to submit comments on the proposal for 60 days, at which point the agency will move to make it final. An F.T.C. document said the rule would take effect 180 days after the final version was published, but experts said it could face legal challenges.

U.S. job openings fell less than expected in November as the labor market remains tight, which could see the Federal Reserve boosting interest rates to a higher level than currently anticipated to tame inflation, Reuters reported. There was, however, encouraging news in the inflation fight, with a survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) yesterday showing its measure of prices paid by manufacturers for inputs diving in December to the lowest level since February 2016, discounting the plunge early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The Fed is engaged in its fastest interest rate-hiking cycle since the 1980s as it tries to dampen demand, including for labor, to quell inflation. Last month, the U.S. central bank projected interest rates could rise to a peak of 5.1%. But persistent labor market tightness has led economists to expect that borrowing costs will increase to a much higher level and remain there for a while. "The labor markets are still too darn hot for policymakers," said Christopher Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS in New York. "Fed officials won't be confident their monetary tightening is working until hiring demand begins to slow."

Hess Corp. put a subsidiary into bankruptcy to try to avoid litigating hundreds of asbestos lawsuits tied to an oil refinery it no longer owns. Now workers from that unit are focusing on suing Hess instead, Bloomberg News reported. The legal team for over 600 plaintiffs who say they developed lung disease after working at a U.S. Virgin Islands refinery said in a filing Tuesday it would withdraw pending litigation against the now-bankrupt subsidiary, Honx Inc. It plans to instead proceed with lawsuits against Hess Corp directly for its role in the workers’ asbestos exposure, plaintiffs’ attorney Warren Burns told Bloomberg. Lawyers previously said Honx filed its bankruptcy petition in April “in bad faith,” in order to dodge the up to $1 billion in liabilities it faced. Using bankruptcy to quickly and cheaply settle piles of liability lawsuits has become an increasingly favored tactic in recent years for corporations facing mass litigation. Johnson & Johnson, lumber giant Georgia-Pacific and 3M Co. have tried the maneuver, with varying degrees of success. The refinery in the Virgin Islands used asbestos to insulate boilers, heaters and pipelines. Workers say they were exposed to, and sickened by, the carcinogen during maintenance and turnaround processes at the refinery.

U.S. employers added more jobs than forecast and wages surged by the most in nearly a year, pointing to enduring inflation pressures that boost chances of higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve, Bloomberg News reported. Nonfarm payrolls increased 263,000 in November after an upwardly revised 284,000 gain in October, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The unemployment rate held at 3.7% as participation eased. Average hourly earnings rose twice as much as forecast after an upward revision to the prior month. The median estimates in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 200,000 advance in payrolls and for the unemployment rate to hold at 3.7%. US stocks opened lower and Treasury yields surged as investors anticipated a more aggressive stance from the Fed. “The net read is that the labor market is still far too tight and cooling only very gradually,” Mizuho economists Alex Pelle and Steven Ricchiuto said in a note. “It suggests that the economy is resilient and can handle more rate hikes and restrictive policy for longer.”

The Senate moved quickly yesterday to avert a rail strike that the Biden administration and business leaders warned would have had devastating consequences for the nation’s economy, the Associated Press reported. The Senate passed a bill to bind rail companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached between the rail companies and union leaders in September. That settlement had been rejected by some of the 12 unions involved, creating the possibility of a strike beginning Dec. 9. The Senate vote was 80-15. It came one day after the House voted to impose the agreement. The measure now goes to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature. Shortly before Thursday’s votes, Biden — who had urged Congress to intervene earlier this week — defended the contract that four of the unions had rejected, noting the wage increases it contains. Critics say the contract that did not receive backing from enough union members lacked sufficient levels of paid leave for rail workers. Biden said he wants paid leave for “everybody” so that it wouldn’t have to be negotiated in employment contracts, but Republican lawmakers have blocked measures to require time off work for medical and family reasons. The U.S. president said that Congress should now impose the contract to avoid a strike that Biden said could cause 750,000 job losses and a recession.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the shortfall in labor force participation in the U.S. relative to its pre-pandemic trend is mostly due to excess retirements, which can’t be expected to reverse anytime soon, Bloomberg News reported. “Some of the participation gap reflects workers who are still out of the labor force because they are sick with COVID-19 or continue to suffer lingering symptoms from previous COVID infections,” Powell said yesterday. “But recent research by Fed economists finds that the participation gap is now mostly due to excess retirements — that is, retirements in excess of what would have been expected from population aging alone,” he said. “These excess retirements might now account for more than 2 million of the 3 1/2 million shortfall in the labor force.” The combination of lower net immigration and a surge in deaths during the pandemic probably together account for about 1.5 million missing workers, Powell said. Fed officials have been raising interest rates quickly this year in a bid to bring inflation down from four-decade highs. The central bank’s benchmark federal funds rate is now just below 4%, and investors generally expect it to peak around 5% sometime next year, according to futures contracts.