Cheap flights, interest rate forecasts and uncovering Uber’s union scheme: The business and investing stories you need to know about this week

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Getting caught up on a week that got away? Here’s your weekly digest of The Globe and Mail’s most essential business and investing stories, with insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies and more.

Need to fire workers? Here’s how to do it:

With a potential recession on the horizon, the latest round of tech layoffs are likely only the beginning. And believe it or not, there’s a right way to let employees go, and another way that might get you dragged on social media. Business leaders recently received two very public lessons on how not to fire someone: first was the “crying CEO,” who posted a tear-stained selfie on LinkedIn after he laid off a few employees at his small business; the other was the way Lisa LaFlamme was ousted from her role at CTV News, spurring accusations of sexism and ageism. Layoffs are often an unavoidable part of business, but how they’re conducted is key to maintaining an organization’s integrity. Ben Mussett asks management experts for tips on how best – and how not – to do it.

Finally, some good travel news

For travellers, this summer has been nothing short of a nightmare. From cancelled flights to airport chaos, the travel industry has never looked so disappointing – especially when you factor in the high cost of flights, hotels and all those vacation outfits you’ll need for Instagram after two years of travel lockdowns. But things are looking up this fall, especially for those waiting for deals. Airlines have started slashing prices to meet the steeper-than-usual seasonal drop in demand for leisure travel and growing competition on domestic and Canada-U.S. routes, Erica Alini writes. That means a Toronto-Vancouver round-trip flight in November is less than $200, including taxes and fees, compared to nearly $900 for the same route in August.

The Big Banks are banking on 3.25

Ahead of the Bank of Canada’s next interest rate announcement on Sept. 6, economists and strategists at Canada’s Big Banks are sharing their forecasts for inflation, interest rates and housing for the rest of the year. “The bank will end its rate hike cycle at its next meeting in September, bringing the overnight rate 75 basis points higher to 3.25 per cent,” says CIBC credit strategist Ian Pollick. Meanwhile, Toronto-Dominion Bank forecasts the overnight rate peaking at 3.25 per cent in the fourth quarter, holding throughout 2023 with no rate cuts expected. “The challenge is that inflation is a lagging and backward-looking indicator, and interest rates work with quite a big lag, meaning the peak impact and transmissions won’t be known until next year,” says TD’s chief economist Beata Caranci. “If the Bank of Canada cuts rates too early, they can undo so much of the hard fought progress.”

Can you afford to start that engine?

We’ve reached the end of the road for turning the purchase of a car, SUV or truck into affordable monthly payments, according to Rob Carrick. The average monthly loan payment for financing a vehicle hit a record $781 in July for all-loan terms, the most popular being 84 months. During the pandemic, vehicle production was slowed by supply chain problems, which led to a scarcity of new cars and big price hikes on used ones. Also, gone are the days of 0-per-cent financing deals. Special financing rates today typically start at 3.9 per cent and are often applied to the 84-month term. So if your household needs a vehicle, think hard about buying something that lets you clear your loan in five years and costs a lot less than $781 a month.

Turns out, the union and Uber have been in cahoots

For years, gig workers have been fighting to be classified as employees, from independent contractors. Yet, hundreds of pages of e-mails and reports obtained by The Globe show one of Canada’s most prominent private-sector unions worked closely with Uber Technologies Inc. to ensure that app-based drivers and delivery workers in Ontario would not be granted employee status – a change that would have expanded their pay and benefits. As Vanmala Subramaniam reports, United Food and Commercial Workers and the tech giant worked together to ensure the Ontario government excluded app-based gig workers from being covered by the province’s Employment Standards Act, and influenced the wording of the province’s Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, which was passed this year.

Grocery magnate Donald Sobey’s open secret

One August afternoon in 1991, a criminal lawyer appeared in a Halifax courtroom on behalf of his client, grocery magnate Donald Sobey. A few months prior, Mr. Sobey had been charged with sexually assaulting a young man. Mr. Sobey was a prominent figure in Atlantic Canada by then, serving as chairman of Empire Co. Ltd., his family’s company that included the Sobeys grocery chain, and by the time he died in 2021, the assault was not even a footnote in his biography. Derek Power, however, remembered Mr. Sobey differently – as the man who unzipped his pants and touched him in a hotel room when he was 20 years old. He had never spoken publicly about any of this, until now. Stephen Kimber and Joe Castaldo tell Mr. Power’s side of the story.

Now that you’re all caught up, prepare for the week ahead with the Globe’s investing calendar.

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