| Lagarde policy shift, China growth fears, and progress on tax deal. Important meeting European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, speaking to Bloomberg Television, said that the July 22 Governing Council meeting will include a revision of the bank's forward guidance. She also said that she expects the current asset purchase program to run until "at least" March 2022. She said she's only "guardedly optimistic" about the recovery prospects for the euro area with the delta variant of the coronavirus posing a threat to efforts to return to normal life. Growth Any investor looking for reasons to be concerned about the growth outlook can point to China's slowing recovery for a clear signal. While the country's economic growth was always expected to descend from the heights reached in the initial rebound, economists say the softening has come sooner than expected. The People's Bank of China's 50 basis-point cut to most banks' reserve ratio on Friday pointed to the changing outlook for the economy. That's on top of the continued crackdown on the tech sector which has helped push the gap between megacap tech stocks in China and the U.S. to the widest in at least a year. Tax deal As expected, the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Venice endorsed plans for a global tax agreement. The challenge now is for national parliaments to ratify the plan ahead of a leaders summit in Rome in October. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen began to put a timeline on when the Biden administration hopes Congress will vote on key portions of the agreement. Yellen remains in Europe today as she tries to persuade EU officials to drop their proposed digital levy on online sales. Markets mixed The week is starting with a mixed picture for global equities, with investors awaiting what promises to be a busy second-quarter earnings season. Overnight the MSCI Asia Pacific Index gained 1.2% and Japan's Topix index closed 2.1% higher as stocks in the region reacted to Friday's PBOC RRR cut. In Europe the Stoxx 600 Index was broadly unchanged at 5:50 a.m. Eastern Time with travel companies again under pressure. S&P 500 futures pointed to a small move lower at the open, the 10-year Treasury yield was at 1.331%, oil slipped and gold was lower. Coming up... The U.S. sells $58 billion of three-year notes at 11:30 a.m. The WASDE crop report for July is at 12:00 p.m. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari speaks later. Janet Yellen attends the Eurogroup finance ministers meeting in Brussels. There are no earnings of note today, but this week sees most of the big Wall Street banks reporting second-quarter results. What we've been readingHere's what caught our eye over the weekend. And finally, here's what Joe's interested in this morningIt's taken for granted that among professional workers, there's more to a job than just a salary. This whole discussion about the future of Work From Home is, in part, a discussion of what non-monetary factors go into the ideal workplace. The lavish perks of large tech companies speak further to this idea, that attracting the best labor force involves more than just the right salary. That being said, this discussion has historically skipped over lower-paid service workers, who are regarded as replaceable and fungible, and "just doing a job." But perhaps this too is about to change. On the latest episode of the Odd Lots podcast, we spoke with Kurt Alexander, the CFO of Omni Hotels & Resorts, which has about 50 locations throughout North America. Like a lot of competitors, they slashed employment to the bone during the worst of the crisis, and are now struggling to fill open jobs. Perhaps the most interesting insight into how he's thinking about labor right now came around the 31 minute mark, where he discussed the idea of just paying a temp agency $25/hour to find workers to do basic things like room cleaning. Such a move would be premised on the idea that labor markets will return to "normal" after, say, the enhanced UI goes away, child care returns, and so forth. Instead they're not taking this approach. While Omni is certainly raising wages, it's also experimenting with things like more flexible shifts (perhaps as short as 3 hours), gifting specialty knives to culinary workers, more skills training as well as looking into ways to help employees pay off student debt. In other words, beyond pay, the company is thinking about building the employee/employer relationship in a way that might more resemble what higher-paid professionals are accustomed to. Anyway, Kurt's comments perfectly dovetailed with a discussion we had on TV on Friday (around the 16 minute mark) with Steve Cadigan, the author of the new book Workquake: Embracing the Aftershocks of COVID-19 to Create a Better Model of Working. His basic message is the same: Silicon Valley for years has understood that they need to actively battle for talent, by creating a culture that's desirable for employees. Now he sees service industries as being forced to do the same thing. Listen to the full episode on how the Omni Hotel is dealing with hiring here. Joe Weisenthal is an editor at Bloomberg Like Bloomberg's Five Things? Subscribe for unlimited access to trusted, data-based journalism in 120 countries around the world and gain expert analysis from exclusive daily newsletters, The Bloomberg Open and The Bloomberg Close. | 
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