°®¶¹´«Ã½

MEXICO CITY — Workers at a General Motors plant in Mexico have voted to end a collective bargaining contract negotiated by an old-guard union accused of intimidation tactics in earlier votes. It was an early display of the effectiveness of labor mechanisms negotiated under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement.

As retailers ramp up inventory for a fast-approaching holiday shopping season, experts worry that an already overextended domestic supply chain will be further tested amid overseas ports’ struggles with the COVID-19 delta variant, rising shipping prices and trucking’s persistent and growing driver shortage.

Class 8 retail sales in July neared 17,000 and improved 16.3% compared with a year earlier, but landed at the year’s second-lowest level, WardsAuto .com reported.

Three Democratic senators are asking the Taiwanese government to help the U.S. with a chip shortage that has idled auto plants and sent workers packing throughout the industry as the global economy struggles to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The American Transportation Research Institute announced Aug. 18 that it has launched a data collection initiative to better understand drivers’ job motivations.

Toyota Motor Corp.’s efforts to stockpile enough chips and other key components to ride out supply disruptions only protected the company so long before it too succumbed to the shortages eviscerating automakers.

WASHINGTON — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell last week for a fourth straight time to a pandemic low, the latest sign that America’s job market is rebounding from the pandemic recession as employers boost hiring to meet a surge in consumer demand.

U.S. trailer orders in July slid some more, barely clearing 8,000 units and setting a new low point of this cycle, FTR reported.

News of Amazon .com Inc.’s department store plans sent a shudder through retail stocks just as some of the biggest names in the industry were reporting robust earnings, a signal that new challenges await in the beleaguered sector.

Supply chain challenges have prompted multiple states in the Midwest to extend regulatory relief to truckers who haul fuel.