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By The Numbers

Jobs R Not Us

Marketplace Staff Sep 16, 2015
5,000

That’s how many fewer workers Toys R Us plans to hire for seasonal work this December. The company says it will hire roughly 40,000 workers for its 570 U.S. locations. As Fortune writes, the decreased hiring may signal that the company has more faith in e-commerce than it does for in-store sales.

$250 billion

That’s the worth of the theoretical beer juggernaut that could result from  Anheuser-Busch InBev (the world’s biggest brewer) merging with SABMiller (the second largest). News broke Wednesday that SABMiller had been approached by Anheuser-Busch InBev. Lately, the beer market has seen small craft breweries take up an increasing share of the market. So, what are the advantages of the two companies becoming a singular brewer?

9 years

That’s how long it’s been since the Fed hiked interest rates. All eyes are on a two-day meeting convening on Wednesday, as economists ask: Will they or won’t they? The Fed has been signaling for months now that a rate increase could come before the end of the year, but with the recent market volatility and turmoil in the world economy, analysts are less sure.

33,300

Speaking of decreased employment, that’s how many jobs HP says it will cut in the next 3 years. As Reuters reports, 30,000 of those jobs will come out of the soon-to-be spun-off enterprise business, with the other 3,300 drawn from the part of HP that will still be making computers, HP Inc. 

14 percent

That’s the percentage of households that have a mortgage that have more than one income-earner with significant earnings, though only one may be on the mortgage. It’s part of an increasing trend of main mortgage borrowers living with working parents, children or roommates who pitch in money for rent, groceries and utilities. Now Fannie Mae is paying attention. In an effort to increase the number of people who qualify for a mortgage, the Home Ready option will count people living in the household who are stably employed but not the main borrower.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the meaning of 14 percent. 

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