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Canada’s Inflation Climbs to 2.4% as Gas Prices Surge to Record High

  Canada’s inflation rate accelerated to 2.4% in March , up from 1.8% in February, as the Iran war triggered the largest monthly gasoline price increase on record . Statistics Canada reported that gas prices surged 21.2% month‑over‑month , a supply‑shock response to Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and broader Middle East instability.  Energy costs were the dominant driver of March inflation, with overall energy prices rising 3.9% year‑over‑year after a sharp decline the month before. Excluding gasoline, inflation would have eased to 2.2% , highlighting how concentrated the price shock was.  Food inflation offered mixed relief: grocery prices rose 4.4% , while fresh vegetables jumped 7.8% due to difficult growing conditions. Restaurant inflation cooled sharply as last year’s tax‑holiday distortions fell out of the annual comparison.  Economists note that while headline inflation spiked, core measures remained relatively tame , giving the Bank of Canada ro...

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Google Lays Off Hundreds of Employees in Hardware, Voice Assistant Teams Amid Cost-Cutting Drive

 

Google has laid off hundreds of employees working on its hardware, voice assistance and engineering teams as part of cost-cutting measures. 

The cuts come as Google looks towards “responsibly investing in our company’s biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead,” the company said in a statement. The job cuts are part of a broader effort to reduce costs and streamline operations.

Google earlier said it was eliminating a few hundred roles, with most of the impact on its augmented reality hardware team. The cuts follow pledges by executives of Google and its parent company Alphabet to reduce costs  In a post on X — previously known as Twitter — the Alphabet Workers Union described the job cuts as “another round of needless layoffs”. The union wrote, “Our members and teammates work hard every day to build great products for our users, and the company cannot continue to fire our coworkers while making billions every quarter. We won’t stop fighting until our jobs are safe!”.


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