Immigrants’ humble jobs

More than 12m people work in the US restaurant and bar industry. Dishwashers occupy one of the humblest rungs, but they are among the most badly needed. Restaurant operators advertised tens of thousands of dishwashing jobs last year, making them one of the industry’s most-sought positions, according to labour market analytics firm Lightcast. The Trump administration’s tougher immigration enforcement is making that harder in the US restaurant industry, where foreign-born workers make up about 20pc of jobs. Young people are also more reluctant to take the longtime starting point to the working world, industry officials said. Dishwashers’ pay averages around $32,500 a year, ranking in the bottom third of restaurant jobs, according to jobs platform Indeed. They are also essential workhorses, often the last to leave at night, after mopping floors and taking out the trash.

(Adapted from ”Restaurants Are Finding It Harder Than Ever to Hire Someone to Wash the Dishes,” by Heather Haddon, published on April 12, 2026, by the Wall Street Journal)

Scaling back tax enforcement

The Trump administration is scaling back tax enforcement, leaving fewer federal employees to audit returns, collect unpaid tax debts and deter Americans from skirting the law. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has shed thousands of enforcement workers since President Trump returned to office, and his fiscal 2027 budget proposal seeks further cuts amid the administration’s broader pullback of white-collar law enforcement. The IRS enforcement workforce would fall below 30,000, fewer than at the end of Trump’s first term and about a third less than the Biden-era peak. The retrenchment is spurring a vibe shift across the tax landscape ahead of the April 15 deadline, and lawyers say they see more taxpayers and tax-shelter promoters eager to cut corners or cheat. Audits of people with at least $10m in income dropped 9pc last year, and they are on track to decline another 39pc this year.

(Adapted from “America’s New Tax Mantra: ‘The IRS Isn’t Going To Catch Me,” by Richard Rubin, published on April 12, 2026, by the Wall Street Journal)

Gold glitters on

Every morning for the past six months, Isaac Kahan has left his house at 3:30am to begin his workday on the stretch of 47th Street that comprises New York City’s bustling Diamond District. Buying and selling gold has never been a busier vocation. As the president of Bullion Trading, he sells about $1m in gold from his storefront every day. Though one-ounce bars are his most popular offering, Mr Kahan has taken to selling quantities of gold that are so tiny they would have been unthinkable a year or two ago — as little as 2.5 grams, for around $500. “[Gold is] one asset that’s easy, global, portable, accepted everywhere, with a 5,000-year history and not likely to go to zero,” says Steven Feldman, the CEO and co-founder of GBI, which provides institutional infrastructure for trading and custody of physical precious metals. Today’s inflationary pressure and geopolitical tensions have catapulted its price to unprecedented heights.

(Adapted from “Our Long Love Affair With Gold,” by Lane Florsheim, published on April 16, 2026, by the Wall Street Journal)

Era of mega layoffs

Snap is laying off 16pc of its staff. Block lopped off 40pc of its workforce. Oracle, meanwhile, is shedding thousands of employees, after Amazon.com cut about 30,000 in a matter of months. Welcome to the era of the mega-layoff. Instead of laying off people in more incremental — and less disruptive — waves, employers are seizing on the potential financial upsides of severing swaths of their workforces at once. That is a departure from not long ago, when mass layoffs registered as a sign of trouble or mismanagement. Now, such a company is more likely to get a big stock bump and praise from investors for acting boldly. So far, the rationale for the cuts appears to be driven less by AI’s abilities to replace workers outright than by the soaring costs of building the technology, according to executives. And many companies, particularly in tech, continue to course-correct after overhiring during the pandemic.

(Adapted from “Has The Era Of The Mega-Layoff Arrived?” by Chip Cutter, published on April 15, 2026, by the Wall Street Journal)

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, April 27th, 2026