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Embattled Scandinavian airline SAS and unions representing pilots will resume negotiations on Wednesday to try and agree a new labour deal to end a one-week strike, Reuters reported. SAS has canceled more than 1,200 flights since July 4 when talks with many of its pilots over a new collective bargaining agreement collapsed and they launched the crippling strike. "What has now happened is that we have asked the parties to gather in Stockholm from Wednesday," Swedish mediator Jan Sjolin said. Henrik Thyregod, head of the Danish pilots union told Reuters he was certain an outcome would be reached but was unsure of how long the negotiations would take. Spokespeople for SAS and the Norwegian and Swedish pilot unions also confirmed that the talks will resume but declined to elaborate on the content or expected outcome. The airline said on Monday it had informed mediators that it wishes to resume negotiations with the aim of "reaching a new collective agreement." The loss-making carrier has estimated the strike, now in its ninth day, is costing $10 million to $13 million a day.

Staffing shortages, bad weather, high fuel prices and runaway inflation — airlines face plenty of challenges as they seek to benefit from a strong travel rebound. But there’s at least one other complication in the mix: negotiating new pilot contracts, the New York Times reported. Each of the nation’s largest carriers is in the process of trying to strike a deal with pilots. In some cases, airlines appear ready to pay substantially higher wages, with two major airlines recently offering to raise pay more than 14 percent in the next year and a half. But money alone may not be enough. Pilot unions are also demanding changes that they say would improve operations and their members’ quality of life, particularly as flight disruptions throughout the recovery have left pilots feeling frustrated and overworked. They may be well positioned to get what they want, industry analysts say. A brewing pilot shortage was worsened during the pandemic when airlines encouraged thousands of pilots and other workers to accept buyouts and early-retirement offers. Now, with the industry hiring pilots at record numbers but struggling to attract, train and retain them, their unions are pushing hard for broader changes. Airlines in the United States have already hired more than 5,500 pilots this year, more than in any full year since at least 1990, according to Future & Active Pilot Advisors, a career consulting firm for pilots. The four largest carriers — American, Delta, Southwest and United — accounted for most of that hiring and collectively employ about 50,000 pilots. Those airlines say that they have had little trouble finding qualified candidates, though the smaller, regional airlines from which they hire are struggling.

Scandinavian airline SAS canceled almost 70% of its flights on Friday as a pilots strike stranded thousands of tourists overseas, Reuters reported. Some 181 flights, or 69% of those scheduled, were canceled on Friday, data from flight tracker FlightAware showed. SAS has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights since Monday when talks between the airline and pilots over a new collective bargaining agreement collapsed. The carrier, whose biggest owners are the Swedish and the Danish states, filed for chapter 11 protection in the United States this week. It held a first court hearing on Thursday in a process SAS expects will take up to a year. Since the talks broke down the only movement has been work toward an agreement between SAS and unions allowing the carrier to bring home stranded charter passengers booked on flights operated by SAS. A SAS spokeswoman said about 18 planes were set to repatriate such travellers on Friday while a negotiator for Dansk Metal, representing Danish pilots, said unions were still seeking assurances the planes would be used for no other purpose.

More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, exasperation is growing among business, city and community leaders across the U.S. who have seen offices left behind while life returns to normal at restaurants, airlines, sporting events and other places where people gather, the Wall Street Journal reported. Even after many employers have adopted hybrid schedules, less than half the number of prepandemic office workers are returning to business districts consistently. The problem is most pronounced in America’s biggest cities. Nationally, office use hit a pandemic-era high of 44% in early June, while cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and New York have lagged behind, according to Kastle Systems, which collects data on how many workers swipe into office buildings each day. The divide has created a sense of urgency among politicians and business leaders in these cities, where the stakes are especially high because office workers are the engine of local economies and fuel small businesses. From April 2020 to March 2021, 26,300 New York City small businesses closed permanently, according to a report the mayor released in the spring. Available office space in New York has grown to about 125 million square feet, up from 90 million in the first quarter of 2020, according to data firm CoStar Group Inc. Retail rents in Manhattan have declined for 18 consecutive quarters, starting well before the pandemic, according to commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group Inc. One issue for workers in big cities is time spent in transit. New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Chicago have some of the nation’s longest commute times — as well as some of the lowest return-to-office rates, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the country’s 24 largest metropolitan areas in May.

U.S. job openings fell less than expected in May, pointing to a still tight labor market that could keep the Federal Reserve on an aggressive monetary policy path as it battles high inflation, Reuters reported. Though a survey from the Institute for Supply Management on Wednesday showed its measure of services sector employment contracted in June for the third time in the last five months, businesses complained they were "unable to fill positions with qualified applicants," and that "demand for talent is higher." The Fed is trying to cool demand for labor and the overall economy to bring inflation down to its 2% target. Job openings, a measure of labor demand, dropped 427,000 to 11.3 million on the last day of May, the Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report. It was the second straight monthly decline in job openings after a record high of 11.9 million in March. The decrease in vacancies was led by professional and business services, with 325,000 fewer job openings. Job openings at manufacturers of long-lasting goods dropped 138,000, while there were 70,000 fewer unfilled positions in the nondurable goods manufacturing industry.

A former managing director at Archegos Capital Management LP has sued the private investment firm and its indicted founder Bill Hwang, claiming a loss of tens of millions of dollars when the firm collapsed, causing huge losses for banks, Reuters reported. In a complaint filed yesterday in Manhattan federal court, Brendan Sullivan said that he was defrauded out of as much as $50 million after Archegos required him and colleagues to put at least 25% of their bonuses in its deferred compensation plan. Sullivan said that the plan lost $500 million when the firm collapsed in March 2021, despite Archegos' promise that money would be safely invested only in highly liquid stocks. He said that participation was effectively coerced by requiring employees to decide how much to defer before Hwang awarded bonuses. Archegos once had $36 billion of assets. It imploded when it was caught short after making huge bets on stocks including ViacomCBS through securities known as total return swaps. The resulting fire sale in stocks caused about $10 billion of losses for banks, primarily Credit Suisse Group AG and Nomura Holdings Inc. "The message was crystal clear. No contribution. No bonus," said Sullivan, a specialist in technology and media companies.

A day after its pilots went on strike, SAS, the Scandinavian airline, said on Tuesday that it had filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States, the latest reverberation in a summer of turmoil for European airlines, the New York Times reported. SAS described the filing, made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, as the “next step” in a reorganization that would address the money-losing airline’s financial difficulties, including cost reductions of more than $700 million. It said it was in discussions with potential lenders who could provide $700 million in financing to support operations through the chapter 11 process. It expected to emerge from the process in nine to 12 months. SAS, which is the national airline of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, said that it would continue flying, although on Monday it called the pilots’ strike “devastating” and warned that it could cause the cancellation of half of its flights, affecting about 30,000 passengers daily. On Monday, SAS canceled 51 percent of its flights, according to FlightAware. By midday on Tuesday, nearly 80 percent of its flights had been canceled. SAS’s stock price fell about 15 percent Tuesday, extending a 5 percent decline the day before.

Former employees of First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. are suing the Plano, Texas-based company after it laid off 75% of its staff on June 24 and filed for bankruptcy, and they claim the company also previously terminated hundreds of employees without notice earlier this year, the Dallas Morning News reported. The former employees — Lori Buckley, Gayle Zech, Roberta Martinez, Jennifer Jackson and James Davies — filed a class-action lawsuit against the company June 30 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Some of those employees and several others filed separate, similar class-action suits in U.S. District Courts on June 29. The former employees claim the lender didn’t give them the 60-day layoff notice required under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, and they are asking for the 60 days of back pay and benefits required when not giving the notice. First Guaranty “could’ve and should’ve done something more professional. They didn’t,” said Jack Raisner, founding partner of Raisner Roupinian LLP, which is representing the former employees in the bankruptcy case. “For whomever this happens to, it is a life-changing experience. Losing a job like this can be catastrophic.” The June 30 complaint alleges that First Guaranty previously laid off about 300 employees on April 27 without cause and did not file a WARN notice with the state. One of those employees, Davies, was rehired June 7 and terminated again in the mass layoff later in the month, the complaint said. The company began its bankruptcy court hearing on Friday, which allowed the company to borrow funds to continue operations while in bankruptcy, Raisner said. It is not yet known whether the company plans to sell or reorganize in some other way.

A labor contract for 22,000 U.S. West Coast dockworkers is on the verge of expiring, opening the door to strikes, lockouts or work stoppages — but both sides still appear willing to avoid such disruptions amid the busiest season of the year for shipping, Bloomberg News reported. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the more than 70 employers represented by the Pacific Maritime Association started May 10 negotiating a fresh contract for longshoremen across 29 ports in California, Oregon and Washington. While the current agreement ends Friday, July 1, the groups have recently said they’re unlikely to reach a deal before then and reaffirmed neither side is preparing for a strike or lockout. The ports handle just under half of the containers entering and leaving the U.S. and are the principal gateway for shipments to and from China, the biggest source of American merchandise imports — illustrating the high-stakes nature of the negotiations. Last November, the ILWU declined an offer by the PMA to extend the current contract until July 2023. The current pact was originally set to end in 2019, but was lengthened after roughly two-thirds of union members voted to do so in exchange for higher wages and pensions.