Despite a decade of hiring, there are still significant skills gaps evident in the U.S. labor market. A recent report from the U.S. Chamber identified the most impacted industries, and found that there are significant gaps across the financial services and professional and business services industries.

Both of these sectors have a plethora of open roles, but not enough qualified candidates to fill them.

“The industries with lower-than-average unemployment rates have fewer experienced candidates to choose from when filling their job openings,” the report says. “This situation leads to heightened competition among businesses in these industries as they vie for the limited pool of available talent.

5 cybersecurity jobs to apply for now

• Cyber Training Specialist, Senior, Booz Allen, Fort Meade ($84,600 – $193,000)
• Cyber Triage Analyst, Booz Allen, Stafford ($60,400 – $137,000)
• Cyber Threat Analyst (DCO), Alaka`ina Foundation Family of Companies, Honolulu
• Director Technology & Cyber Risk, Comerica, Farmington Hills
• Cyber Security Analyst, Brooksource, Indianapolis

One area that is particularly impacted is cybersecurity. A new report from CyberSeek found that there are only enough workers to fill 83% of available jobs. While there are 1.25 million workers in cybersecurity roles nationwide, around 265,000 additional workers are needed to fill current staffing requirements.

“After the pandemic-fueled IT hiring spree, cybersecurity job demand has stabilized close to pre-pandemic levels,” says Will Markow, vice president of applied research at Lightcast.

There are a number of reasons why this is happening, and include the slew of layoffs and belt-tightening that has been experienced right across the tech industry over the past two years.

Additionally, the pandemic fueled the accelerated adoption of web-based services, and with more and more daily activities like banking, food delivery and shopping happening online, there comes a greater need for security.

Scams are also on the rise. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) has found that the average amount lost by victims of investment scams rose from $1,000 in 2021 to almost $6,000 this year.

A new Consumer Security and Financial Crime Report from Revolut points to Meta platforms as the biggest source of all scams (62%) in the first half of 2024. Revolut identified that Facebook had fraud volumes (39%) which were more than double that of WhatsApp (18%).

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is also widening the skills gap for cybersecurity workers. CyberSeek’s report has found that over the past year, cybersecurity job postings with some requirements for AI skills have increased from 6.3% to 7.3%.

Developing cybersecurity talent

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Paccurate co-founder and CEO James Malley likes to joke that once you get into supply chain tech, the category doesn’t let you back out.

Ten years ago, Malley and Patrick Powers were working together as consultants when they started getting asked the same question over and over. Their clients were asking for help reducing the empty space in their packaging boxes to avoid newly implemented fees from shippers like FedEx and UPS. Malley and Powers couldn’t find good software that solved that issue and started looking into solving the problem themselves.

“We had a fascination with the butterfly effect of this problem area,” Malley told TechCrunch. “The more tweaks you make to packaging, the bigger the downstream. If you use a 10% smaller box, on average it results in 10% fewer pallets and 10% fewer truck trips. It’s also one of the few areas in supply chain where sustainability and cost savings are the same exact thing.”

After a few years of research and development, they formally launched Paccurate in 2018. The software helps parcel shippers determine the most cost-effective and sustainable way to ship the items they need to, a process known as cartonization, by taking factors such as size, weight, and packaging requirements into account. Brands can also use Paccurate’s API to build systems themselves.

Cartonization is often embedded into other supply chain software, Malley said, but a lot of companies don’t trust it. He said that some services just aren’t accurate, while others are focused on helping companies get as much product into as few boxes as possible, which isn’t actually always the most sustainable or cost-efficient option.

When Malley and Powers launched the business, they thought of it as “building a better mouse trap” tech, not necessarily a venture-scalable company. Malley said the company was content to just bootstrap Paccurate and license the tech to other software companies until the pandemic changed the company’s plans.

But Paccurate got flooded with new and larger customers during the COVID e-commerce boom, so the startup started taking venture funding, taking a seed round in 2022 to keep up with demand. Growth has only accelerated since. Last year the company was processing about a million shipments a month, now it’s around a million shipments a day, and Paccurate is working with brands like Daily Harvest and Our Place.

Paccurate recently raised an $8.1 million Series A round led by Indianapolis-based VC High Alpha, with participation from Tech Square Ventures, Grand Ventures, and Springtime Ventures, among others.

This type of logistics is still largely dominated by legacy supply chain software players like the Numina Group and Packsize. While Paccurate isn’t the only startup building for this area — Belgian company Optioryx is another — it’s a significantly less saturated market than many other areas of supply chain, like last-mile freight.

Malley said they anticipate growth will continue for a few reasons. For one, Malley said that it’s one of the few areas where companies can actually cut costs when it comes to warehousing and shipping. He added that for years, companies seemed focused on bringing automation and robotics into the warehouse to cut costs, now many have turned to this area, he said.

Second, regulations will soon force companies to think more about how they are packaging. The European Union recently implemented regulations requiring shipping boxes to be at least 50% full. In the U.S., New Jersey introduced a bill earlier this year that would also require boxes to be at least half full; the bill has passed through the state senate.

“Well-packed boxes are generally not as full as you think they are, 50% empty could be a box that is well-packed and the penalties for not packaging correctly are staggering,” Malley said. “This is a canary in the coal mine. I’ll be watching closely to see which state will be next “

Fundamentally, the redesign seems to serve the same purpose as the current layout by surfacing personalized recommendations based on your purchase habits, browsing history, deals, and other signals based on your shopping activity. Today’s change just builds on that formula with bigger, brighter graphics, more dynamic product curations and groupings, and an increased emphasis on horizontal scrolling for the various collections and sub-hubs you’ll find. (It also makes more room for bigger, thinly veiled ads.)

Sports fans may see a Thursday Night Football ad alongside a refill of their favorite pre-workout, for example, while parents may see toys, children’s books, and perhaps the new colorific Kindle while being tempted by a sale on diapers.

Amazon says it’s been iteratively testing different pieces of these UI changes for a while. The company calls out a new Buy Again hub that makes it easy to stock up on your frequently purchased goods, for example, and I’ve seen that change (but not the others) for some time now.

Again, these recommendations were previously available and worked similarly in various forms before, but I personally think the current experience feels too random and scattered to be useful.

Amazon is hopeful the coming changes will improve on that and ultimately put more products in front of you that are relevant to your taste and needs — and perhaps tempt a little more money out of your wallet along the way.

Polar, maker of some of the best running watch offerings on the market, has unveiled its brand new Vantage M3 smartwatch, the successor to its formidable multi-sport fitness companion.

With the Vantage M3, Polar says it’s bringing “class-leading training and health features” to its mid-range watch for the first time.

Despite Vladimir Putin’s administration restricting government officials from purchasing Apple’s iPhone, the purchase of the American phone by Russian government officials has increased multifold this year. Within nine months in 2024, the procurement of iPhones by Russian government officials has grown four times.

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Within nine months of 2024, the Russian government’s procurement of iPhones has grown four times compared to the corresponding period in 2023, a Russian daily reported.  Vedomosti, a Russian daily, reported from January to September in 2024, the total amount of contracts for Apple iPhone by Russian government officials for the first three quarters of 2024 amounted to  RUB 6,879,899. According to the Tenderplan trading platform, the sale of first three quarters of 2024 was higher compared to RUB 1,642,166 for the same period in 2023. 

In June last year, Russia’s Federal Security Service claimed it had uncovered an American espionage operation and sophisticated surveillance software was used to compromise thousands of iPhones. However, Apple denied the allegations. The Kremlin had directed Russian authorities to ditch iPhones and move to phones with the Android operating system, the Russian Aurora system or Chinese software over security concerns. 

The Kremlin had also directed authorities involved in the 2024 Presidential polls to stop using iPhones because of security concerns. The government also banned authorities from using iPhones and iPads for work emails and applications. 

According to reports, the latest iPhone 16 is on high demand in Russia despite Apple halting exports to over Ukraine conflict. Unfazed by higher prices and using so-called grey or parallel imports that Russia legalised to enable the import of goods without the brand owners’ permission, Russians have been keen to get their hands on Apple’s devices, Reuters reported.