Cruise is doing anything but in the final weeks of the year. The GM-owned self-driving car company said yesterday it will lay off 24% of its staff (~900 employees) as well as nine execs following a serious autonomous taxi crash in San Francisco in October and the vehicles’ subsequent banning in the state of California.

Cruise’s staff reduction appears mostly due to the safety concerns around the company’s robotaxis, but it comes after a deluge of other high-profile companies made major cuts just before the holidays:

• Etsy. The online marketplace where you can find knit balaclavas and hand-painted wooden signs emblazoned with “wine o’clock” said it was laying off 11% of its staff on Wednesday. CEO Josh Silverman blamed the macroeconomic environment and previous overhiring despite gross merchandise sales remaining flat since 2021.
• Hasbro. The toymaker laid off 1,100 workers (roughly 20% of its staff) on Monday after a period of less-than-stellar toy sales following a pandemic surge. This most recent layoff is in addition to the 800 jobs it cut earlier this year.
• Spotify. After the hype of Sound Towns died down, the streaming giant announced its third round of 2023 layoffs earlier this month. This time, the company cut 1,500 jobs, which equates to about 17% of staff.

Why do companies do this?

Pre-holiday layoffs might seem especially cruel, but sadly, they aren’t uncommon. December job cuts are the quickest way for companies to pad the balance sheet and EOY reports before they show them to shareholders. Plus, it means they’ll have to dish out fewer end-of-year bonuses.

But getting an “employee headcount reduction” email right after a company gingerbread house competition isn’t great for staff morale. Especially since CEOs blaming challenging macroeconomic factors is at odds with most Americans finally starting to feel like the economy is turning around.—MM

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🪖 The House passed a huge bipartisan defense bill. The $886 billion package will give service members a 5.2% pay bump and includes investments to boost competition with China and Russia, but does not contain funding for aid to Israel and Ukraine, which is part of a separate $105 billion package. Still, this defense bill provides $28 billion (3%) more than last year’s version. The vote, which passed 310–118, defeated the efforts of far-right GOP lawmakers, who had tried unsuccessfully to shoehorn military restrictions to abortion access, transgender care, and DEI policies.

Strong retail sales are taking us into the holidays. Retail sales jumped 0.3% compared to last month, smashing economists’ expectations of a decline and heralding a strong holiday shopping season. Per the Commerce Department, consumer spending was up across various sectors, including at restaurants and online retailers, though it was down slightly at department stores. The surprisingly good numbers reinforce the notion that the US is increasingly likely to tame inflation without an economic slowdown.

Putin says there’s an “ongoing” dialogue to return Evan Gershkovich. According to the Russian president, the country is in contact with its American counterparts to release Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter who has been jailed in Russia since March on charges of espionage that the US government believes are bogus. US officials also say they’ve made several offers to release Russian nationals detained in the US in exchange for Gershkovich and another American, Paul Whelan, but that the Russians have rejected all of them. A Moscow court yesterday shot down Gershkovich’s appeal of a ruling that extended his detention to the end of January.

Think of the housing market like it’s a frozen piece of salmon you left on the kitchen counter—gradually thawing.

This week, mortgage rates fell for the seventh consecutive week to 6.95%, the first time they’ve been below 7% since August. And mortgage applications increased last week for the sixth straight week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The good news was bolstered by reports that the Federal Reserve’s rate-raising spree is likely over.

As for the rent? Maybe not too dang high. In November, rents across the US fell 2.1% compared to the prior year, according to Redfin, due to a boom in rental construction. And you can stop making fun of your friend who lives in NYC and pays $4,500 a month to live under their desk: Rents in Manhattan dropped 2% for the first time in over two years.

Zoom out: Economists at Realtor.com believe mortgage rates could drop to 6% in the new year, but don’t expect the market to get too hot. Home inventory is at a historic low, and the short supply could be further exacerbated by folks who locked in their sub-4% rates years ago and probably won’t be selling anytime soon.—CC

The nation historically associated with tea just logged higher numbers on a key coffee-drinking metric than the nation that invented the 64-fluid-ounce cardboard Box O’ Joe.

China now has the most branded coffee shops of any country in the world, bumping the US to second place for the first time in at least 20 years, since the World Coffee Portal started tracking. The number of chain coffee shops in China grew by 58% in the past year to surpass US outlets by more than 9,000 storefronts, the industry platform found.

That’s not the only upset. Luckin Coffee—a Chinese company that beat a fraud scandal and bankruptcy to become a major coffee contender—is the largest coffee chain brand in China as of June after it leveraged franchising, low-cost scalability, and localized recipes. It unseated Starbucks, which counts China as its second-largest market (and doesn’t franchise).

Venti catch-up: Starbucks spent $200 million this year on a new Chinese campus, which the company said was its largest investment in a coffee manufacturing and distribution center outside the US. The chain currently has about 6,500 stores in China to Luckin’s ~11,000, and its goal is to reach 9,000 locations by 2025. That could help the Seattle-bred brewer keep its top spot in the overall East Asia coffee market as domestic brands grow.—ML

Stat: We have some good news for grandmas: Searches for the word “granny” on Pornhub were up 132% this year. That’s just one of an unfathomable number of porn-related insights included in the site’s annual year-in-review—most of which we can’t share here. But one that we can report is that the AI craze has officially come to the world of pornography. Searches for “android” increased a whopping 1,689% in 2023. Average time spent on the site was 10 minutes and nine seconds per visit, up 15 seconds from last year, thanks to 45-and-older users (younger demographics spent less time on Pornhub than they did the year prior). For more fascinating data points, including the ones that are even less appropriate for this wholesome business newsletter, you can fire up your browser’s incognito mode and check out the results.

Quote: “We’re asking a very simple question that has somehow been made complicated: Why are you platforming and monetizing Nazis?”

That’s the beginning of a scathing open letter sent by several prominent Substackers to the publishing platform’s co-founders yesterday. They cited a recent piece in The Atlantic that outlined how Substack’s lax moderation policies have allowed neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other bad actors to flourish on the platform. Substack has not yet responded to the letter, but executives told The Atlantic that the platform “is built on freedom of expression” and does not censor writers unless they incite violence.

Read: Mount Everest is on thin ice. (WSJ)

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Feast your eyes: The 17 best streets in the US to see Christmas lights.

Research: A look back at Pew’s most striking findings of 2023.

Get comfy: A short, cozy history of family pajamas.

Learn: Why Neanderthals might be responsible for your being a morning person.

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