'I know you are, but what am I?'

Oil hits skids, drops 7% on worsening outlook for coronavirus in Europe

Oil prices plunged for a fifth day in a row on Thursday, posting their biggest-one day declines since last summer on growing worries about rising COVID-19 cases in Europe and the strengthening U.S. dollar.

 Some Opec-plus members are worried that oil prices could fall sharply if the alliance agrees to a further unwinding of production cuts at its next full ministerial meeting on Apr. 1 @energyintel #OOTT #opec— Amena Bakr (@Amena__Bakr) March 19, 2021 

Delta Electronics, a producer of power components for Apple and Tesla, has cut its headcount in China by almost half, in the biggest such move to be made public by a Taiwanese electronics company in the country.

The sharp reduction comes as electronics companies are seeking to adjust to the fallout from the US-China trade war and evade soaring production costs in the world’s second-largest economy

“Our target in China is to reduce the direct labour force by 90 per cent. We are not quite there yet. We have reduced [it] by 40 per cent,” Yancey Hai, Delta’s chair, told the Financial Times in an interview.

Taiwanese companies that manufacture computers, servers, smartphones and telecom infrastructure gear on behalf of brands such as Apple, Dell, Google and Xiaomi are setting up shop in south-east Asia, India and elsewhere.

US pressure to diversify supply chains away from China and rising labour costs in the country are driving the change. But most, such as Foxconn, are reluctant to spell out the impact of the shift on their China presence for fear of angering Beijing.

Delta is also building four large factories in India, where the company plans to make photovoltaic inverters and industrial automation equipment for the local market and information technology and communications gear for export.

“For China the problem is, even without the US-China conflict, China is no longer a good place for manufacturing,” Hai said. Wages in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan have grown tenfold since the company set up shop there in 1992. “More discouraging than that is the [staff] turnover rate. In India, it is much more stable,” he said.

Hai said the use of automation would allow the company to diversify its manufacturing footprint even further. “In the future, if we have to do some assembly, if we have a more automatic line, we can do that even in the States,” he said. “If we have to hire 10,000 people there, forget it.

But if we can hire 100 or 200 people in the States, but with more automated production, we can do it.”

“It makes absolutely no sense that in Spain we can’t move between regions but any foreigner can come in ... and spread infection,” said Emilio Rivas, 23, who lives in Madrid.

Retired Madrid resident Angelines Ruiz complained of having to stay put after cancelling a trip to the western region of Extremadura.

“On top of that I’m afraid of going anywhere in case I get infected by one of these French or Germans,” said Ruiz, 76.

 EU vaccine "failures seem to reflect fundamental flaws in the continent’s institutions and attitudes — including the same bureaucratic and intellectual rigidity that made the euro crisis a decade ago far worse than it should have been"https://t.co/6YYV9pocpl— Bruno Waterfield (@BrunoBrussels) March 19, 2021