Tag: News

• Patagonia has told 90 customer service staff to relocate to one of seven locations or leave. 
• The affected staff have three days to inform the company of their decision. 
• The company is trying to improve team culture and support business needs, a spokesperson told Business Insider. 

Sustainable outdoors brand Patagonia has given 90 US employees a choice — tell the company you are willing to relocate by Friday or leave your job.

The employees all work in customer services, known at Patagonia as the customer experience (CX) team, and are able to work remotely to field calls and inquiries.

They were first alerted on Tuesday morning when they received a text and email.

"At 10 a.m. PST we will be hosting an important Town Hall Meeting," read the internal email, which was seen by Business Insider.

"We understand that some are scheduled to be off today, but please know that we will pay you for the day [8 hours] if you can make the time to attend."

Half an hour later, in a 15-minute town hall hosted by executives Amy Velligan and Bruce Old, staff were informed that the team would be moving to a new "hub" model.

CX employees must now live within 60 miles of one of seven "hubs" — Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Reno, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, or Pittsburgh.

Workers have been offered $4,000 toward relocation costs, and extra PTO. Those who choose to relocate must do so by September 30.

If not willing to move state, staff must leave the company. They have been given 72 hours, until Friday, to confirm their decision.

"It was very factual. If you don't live in these seven metro areas, you either need to move there or give us your stuff and hit the brick," one affected CX worker told BI.

"If we don't respond by Friday, they will assume that we have chosen the severance package and we'll start that process."

The town hall was followed by a one-on-one meeting with HR, before access to company laptops and phones was shut off later that day.

Patagonia verified the details of the announcement to BI, confirming that 90 of 255 CX staff in the US were affected.

"I definitely feel like I've been laid off," one CX worker told BI, asking to remain anonymous as they had yet to finalize their severance package. "I've never been late for work; I have gotten nothing but outstanding performance reviews."

The severance package was generous, the worker said, but added it was sad to see a company they had believed in "fall to the Walmart level."

Both employees BI spoke to said they were accepting the severance and did not know anyone who was considering relocation.

Patagonia spokesperson Corley Kenna told BI several employees had already indicated they would relocate.

"These changes are crucial for us to build a vibrant team culture," Kenna explained, adding that feeling disconnected had been a common complaint amongst CX workers.

The company hopes to bring staff together at the hubs at least once every six weeks for in-person trainings, company gatherings, or Activism Hours.

Hub locations

Patagonia chose the hubs on the basis of "where we have existing community and retail locations," Kenna said.

California, a state that is core to the brand's identity and plays home to its corporate HQ in Ventura, as well as seven stores and outlets, was not chosen.

Both employees who spoke to BI believed this was because Patagonia doesn't want to handle the increased demands of employees in states with higher costs of living.

"We've been asking for raises for a long time, and they keep telling us that your wage is based on a Reno [a city in Nevada] cost of living and where you choose to live is on you."

"Unfortunately, a California-based hub would not meet the criteria we set for a sustainable CX model," Kenna told BI, confirming that the cost of living and other business needs contributed to the decision.

"The reality is that our CX team has been running at 200% to 300% overstaffed for much of this year," Kenna told BI.

"While we hoped to reach the needed staffing levels through attrition, those numbers were very low, and retention remained high."

'Big corp in sheep's clothing'

The company, founded by rock climber Yvon Chouinard in 1973, was ranked the most reputable brand in the US in 2023, according to an Axios-Harris poll.

Jokingly referred to as Patagucci, it has become the go-to uniform for style-conscious tech developers and mountaineers alike.

Now a multibillion-dollar company, it is beloved for its focus on sustainability and efforts to develop a more ethical form of capitalism.

"Let my people go surfing" was Chouinard's relaxed mindset toward working culture.

In 2022, the founder took the unprecedented step of transferring Patagonia to a trust and nonprofit, directing the profits toward combatting the climate crisis.

"Instead of 'going public,' you could say we're 'going purpose," Chouinard wrote at the time.

Since September 2022, Patagonia has donated more than $71 million in earnings to charitable causes, the New York Times reported earlier this year.

"It feels like they're full of shit, that they would rather spend their money on the world instead of their people," one worker said in response to the restructuring.

"I think that the company has changed a lot since it sold to Mother Earth," agreed the second CX employee. "Since Yvon stepped away, it's been a slow burn of shifting away from caring about employees."

The rhetoric around attendance is tougher, and for the last year, employees were told the company was over budget, the employee added.

"Patagonia is not this small niche outdoor company anymore, it's a big corp in sheep's clothing. I still think they made good products, but I think they don't treat their people as well as they claim to."

Are you a worker at Patagonia? Contact this reporter at pthompson@businessinsider.com

• Daily essentials are inflating faster than broad inflation indexes, making life harder for many Americans.
• The ALICE Essentials Index shows a 7.3% annual increase in basic costs from 2021 to 2023.
• Rising costs are outpacing wage growth, affecting the West and Southeast the most.

It's no secret that Americans have been feeling the pinch of inflation everywhere they go — but daily essentials are only getting pricier. It could be making workers feel even worse.

The latest report from research organization United For ALICE — which tracks asset-limited, income-constrained, but employed Americans — looks at how the costs of basic essentials are rising. ALICE Americans make above the federal poverty level but not enough to comfortably afford all their daily expenses, often making too much to qualify for government assistance.

The ALICE Essentials Index, which includes housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare, and technology costs, has risen by a projected 7.3% annually from 2021 to 2023; comparatively, CPI has risen by 6.1%.

"CPI measures our whole economy and the goods and services that people of all income levels purchase, whereas ALICE Essentials is only the basics," Stephanie Hoopes, national director at United For ALICE, told Business Insider. "Those basics have been increasing even more" than broader prices, she said.

And those costs are even outpacing the rapid wage growth that lower-earning Americans have seen.

Data on the annual rate of change between 2021 and projected 2023 values for the ALICE Essentials Index suggests that prices have increased most in the West and Southeast. Arizona's annual rate of change for prices of the basic goods and services tracked by the essentials index during this time period was 10.4%, while Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina were all above 9%.

The Midwest and Northeast were less impacted by rising prices for essentials, though many of these states were still in the 6% to 7% range.

Even so, prices are still rising everywhere, as the index jumped in each region since 2021 — rising faster than most years prior. While United For ALICE anticipates the index plateauing in the South, the Midwest, West, and Northeast are expected to continue increasing through 2024.

Since most inflation indexes focus on urban areas, rural areas are often omitted from many inflation numbers. The ALICE Essentials Index for rural areas was slightly higher than that for urban areas, at 7.5% and 7.2%, respectively.

Americans who are ALICE were already struggling to get by: Business Insider has spoken to many employed Americans — including a couple who bring home over six figures — who still can't make ends meet.

Many are excluded from federal assistance, frequently tied to an outdated federal poverty line. The poverty line is based on a formula from the 1960s that estimated people spent about a third of their income on food, which is now only 13%.

"Long before everybody else was upset about inflation, ALICE was dealing with inflation," Hoopes said.

There's also good news in the economy, especially for those with lower wages: Jobs numbers have been encouraging, as the economy added 272,000 jobs last month — almost 100,000 more than expectations. Healthcare and leisure and hospitality were two sectors seeing the largest job increases. Still, ALICE Americans tend to be overrepresented in these roles, as many pay below the ALICE threshold of about $55,000 a year.

Rising prices for essentials might be a factor in many Americans' economic gloom.

"I think this really helps explain the disconnect between the broad macroeconomic indicators that are showing a strong economy and that personal disconnect that we see on the ground," Hoopes said, adding: "Just the mere fact that working full time in some of these jobs that are hard jobs, you're not able to support a basic family budget — I think that explains a lot of dissatisfaction and the disconnect."

Are you struggling to keep up with the cost of daily essentials? Contact these reporters at nsheidlower@businessinsider.com and jkaplan@businessinsider.com.

• A steep shortage of homes has created a serious housing crisis across the country.
• Record numbers of Americans are spending more than they can afford on their mortgage or rent.
• Biden and Trump offer divergent approaches to federal housing policy.

The US is facing a housing crisis. A severe shortage of homes, high interest rates, and elevated building costs mean record numbers of Americans are spending more than they can afford on housing and are homeless.

The economy will likely be a central focus of this week's first presidential debate. Former President Donald Trump has promised to attack President Joe Biden specifically on inflation. And Trump has repeatedly accused his successor of not doing enough to keep housing costs in check.

Since taking office, Biden has pursued a grab bag of policies to incentivize affordable home construction and preservation, loosen regulations that restrict home construction, and subsidize homeownership and the cost of renting. As president, Trump proposed massive cuts to federal housing assistance for the neediest households and rolled back some fair housing policies, while urging states and cities to pursue some zoning reform — a goal that progressives also tend to support.

There have been some bipartisan efforts at the federal level to address the housing crisis. Generally, Republicans tend to be content with states and local governments controlling housing policy, while Democrats are traditionally more supportive of federal subsidies and intervention.

But lawmakers across the ideological spectrum are quick to concede the country is facing a crisis. Home prices have risen 47% since the pandemic, mortgage interest rates are hovering around 7%, and over half of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing, making them cost-burdened, according to a new Harvard report on the state of US housing. Even as the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates, demand and prices have stayed high, keeping housing inflation stubbornly elevated.

Americans are increasingly concerned about it. US adults listed housing costs as their second-most pressing financial issue in a recent Gallup poll. The concern is bipartisan, although more pronounced among Democrats. Three in four US adults — 83% of Democrats and 68% of Republicans — say the lack of affordable homes is a "significant" problem.

Where Biden stands

As president, Biden has pushed a series of pro-housing policies and generally come out in favor of more federal participation in housing policy.

Among those policy pushes was the "Housing Supply Action" plan, which leverages federal grants and loans to incentivize states and cities to loosen land use regulations and facilitate new construction. The administration has also pushed a slew of initiatives to boost the supply of affordable housing, including encouraging the conversion of office buildings into homes with billions of dollars in federal grants and loans and boosting support for manufactured housing.

Biden's fiscal year 2025 budget proposal, which represents a sort of wish list of the administration's priorities but would require action from an often-gridlocked Congress to become law, includes $258 billion for housing initiatives, including tax credits for first-time homebuyers, homeowners who sell their starter homes, and those who build or renovate starter homes, and an expansion of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and housing choice vouchers for renters.

Biden has discussed housing in the State of the Union and on the campaign trail, including in Nevada, which is facing a particularly severe affordability crisis. "If inflation keeps coming down — and it's predicted to do that — mortgage rates are going to come down as well, but I'm not going to wait," he said during a speech in Las Vegas in March.

In another indication that the White House is centering housing policy as the election nears, Vice President Kamala Harris and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this week announced $85 million in funding for 21 cities to subsidize affordable housing development and the construction of supportive infrastructure, including power lines and water mains.

Some of Biden's farthest-reaching policies were cut from the Inflation Reduction Act, and still others are unlikely to make it through Congress, where Republicans have opposed the vast majority of Democrats' housing proposals.

While some housing policy experts have praised the Biden administration's policies, many of the same experts say its actions haven't gone far enough to address the crisis.

Where Trump stands

As president, Trump didn't pursue as many policies directly intended to make housing more affordable. While in office, Trump's proposed budgets included significant cuts to agencies that provide federal housing subsidies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development. His proposed 2021 budget would have cut housing assistance and community development aid — including shrinking the housing voucher program and slashing funds for public housing — by about 15%, not factoring in inflation, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Trump rolled back certain fair housing protections, including imposing a higher bar for proving housing discrimination and eliminating an Obama-era rule designed to reduce racial segregation. Trump claimed Biden wanted to "abolish" the suburbs and assured suburbanites they would "no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood" after he dismantled the Obama rule, which Biden later restored. The Trump administration also created "Opportunity Zones," designed to incentivize businesses to invest in low-income neighborhoods. But the program has done little to boost affordable housing.

Trump hasn't talked much about housing policy on the campaign trail, despite arguing that Biden hasn't done enough to control housing costs. Last year, he unveiled a vague proposal in a video posted to Truth Social to build up to 10 new American cities on federal land as a way to give American families "a new shot at homeownership."

In another video titled "Ending the Nightmare of the Homeless, Drug Addicts, and Dangerously Deranged," Trump said he would "ban urban camping" in an effort to criminalize unsheltered homelessness. Trump has also promised to crack down on immigration, which his campaign argues would relieve pressure on the housing market. Campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to NPR that Trump would "stop the unstainable invasion of illegal aliens which is driving up housing costs, cut taxes for American families, [and] eliminate costly regulations."

The best stretch of my working life is a period I remember fondly as "Sundays with Jennifer," six months or so in college when I was waiting tables alongside my favorite coworker, named — you guessed it — Jennifer. We spent our shifts chatting and screwing around, treating patrons as little more than an interruption in our weekly hang. We spent weeks planning a "cake party" for our other work friends. One day she brought in weed cookies and one of our coworkers got so high they couldn't figure out how to get out of the bathroom. I do not know if our customers enjoyed the Em-Jen experience, let alone our employer, but we did.

Would I do that today? Ehhh, almost definitely not. For one thing, I take work more seriously now. I'm also more ambivalent about the idea of making close friends at work. I've been at Business Insider for only a few months, and I work in a hybrid situation, so it's trickier to befriend colleagues. It's not that I don't want to get to know anyone, but as someone who's been guilty of blurring the line between professional and personal too much in the past, I've found it refreshing to have some distance. This realization is coming at a time when work friendships are dying out, and the more I think about it, the more I think it may be for the best.

The most obvious reason for the demise of the work friend is the rise of remote work. It's hard to make a new work bestie via Slack and Zoom. While most white-collar workers aren't fully remote anymore, many are still in hybrid situations. The pandemic changed the way people interact and socialize with their colleagues, even in person. We're no longer in the trenches together day after day. This shifting context has led to some changes in the way we develop relationships at work.

There's been a lot of alarmist rhetoric around friendless work. The general line is that work friendships are good because social connections at work keep people productive and engaged and help them manage stress. These friendships improve their job satisfaction and make them less likely to quit. Even if someone is sure they don't care about making nice with their colleagues, networking is still a thing, and refusing to play ball may very well hurt their career in the long run. The lonest of the lone wolves needs some sort of connection.

"I really don't think human beings can toil at their jobs for 40, 50, 60 hours a week without social support in a healthy manner for a sustained amount of time," said Constance Noonan Hadley, an organizational psychologist who founded the Institute for Life at Work.

I'm not disputing that personal bonds are important in the working world. Developing a rapport with colleagues is a good idea, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to scramble to find an office BFF. Even before the pandemic, workplaces moved out of the center of people's lives as they aged. You get older and have kids, and you're not so interested in chatting with your 20-something colleagues about their wild weekends. Or you become a manager, and the happy-hour invites slow to a trickle because people don't want to knock back a bunch of beers in front of the boss.

More working from home and a detachment from the physical office sped up this transition for many people. Worse things could happen. After years of being told to bring our whole selves to work, many of us could stand to leave a little more at home.

The reason people work from home is because it's good for their personal life.

Much of the research on friendships at work focuses on how it's a good deal for employers. Employees' feeling a sense of kumbaya helps them get more done and improves bottom-line results. In some cases, this can come at the expense of employees' best interests. Deeper emotional ties can make them more hesitant to leave their jobs — they're comfortable, and they don't want to leave their friends behind. That's great for bosses, but for workers, I mean, who cares? I've loved gossiping with coworkers, but I hope that never caused any of them to doubt whether they should leave for a better opportunity.

"If you feel disconnected from your coworkers, you're less of a team player. But those are all work-related outcomes," said William Chopik, a social-personality psychologist at Michigan State University who studies relationships. "The reason people work from home is because it's good for their personal life." Chopik added that usually research on working from home focuses on whether it makes people worse at their jobs and not on whether, for example, the lack of a commute benefits them.

There are plenty of non-career-related downsides, too. Work friendships can lead to cliquishness and exclusion or even just endless whining sessions among colleagues. Workplaces are often competitive, and if one friend gets ahead, tensions can arise. We are sometimes suspicious of our coworkers, wondering if they're interacting with us only because they want something, and we doubt we can trust them at all.

On a fundamental level, work friendships aren't the same as friendship friendships. Confusing the two can lead to tension or hurt feelings. A 2018 paper argues that the "four defining features of friendship (informality, voluntariness, communal norms, and socioemotional goals) are in tension with four fundamental elements of organizational life (formal roles, involuntary constraints, exchange norms, and instrumental goals). We hopefully aren't friends with others because we're getting something proportionate and specific out of the relationship in the way we are with work. Saying something embarrassingly stupid in front of a friend is much more acceptable than saying it in front of a coworker, where a certain level of formality is usually part of the deal.

"I think we should try to bring our best professional selves to work, but why should we bring our intimate selves to work?" said Hakan Ozcelik, a professor of management at the College of Business Administration at Sacramento State University. "Our intimate selves and our needs and our desires and our purposes in our intimate roles as human beings should be fulfilled in other domains in our lives rather than at work."

He recently presented research that looked at employees' emotions at work, eliciting stories of when people felt happy, sad, angry, etc. What he and his coauthors found was that task-related events, such as finishing a project, were likelier to result in positive emotions than relationship-related events, such as getting appreciation from a colleague. Employees were likelier to report negative emotions in response to relationship-related events than task-related events.

Ozcelik argued that Perhaps this means the task-related events, rather than the relationship-related events, are where "the happiness, the real joy, comes from," Ozcelik said.

There's no one-size-fits-all formula for friendships at work. It depends on the workplace, your colleagues, and your own personality. Some people need to feel like they belong at work, while others derive most of their satisfaction from the job itself. Hadley, the organizational psychologist, was adamant that no one should try to go it alone forever, professionally, though she acknowledged some workarounds. Perhaps you don't have a lot of friends in your office but you start going to a coworking space or an industry networking event and meeting people there.

It's fine to shut your laptop at 5, tell Jane or Joe or whoever to have a good night, and not know what that night entails.

"You need professional colleagues in some kind of relationship way," she said.

There's space for moderation, though, or even the chance to shed some work friendships for good. Given that we spent the past few decades being told to bring our whole selves to work or hearing from employers about how we're all family, it seems like a positive development that some workers are implementing more boundaries, to use some therapyspeak. You don't have to be a jerk to your colleagues, but you also don't have to invite them to your wedding or say yes to happy hour or know all the ins and outs of their personal lives. It's fine to shut your laptop at 5, tell Jane or Joe or whoever to have a good night, and not know what that night entails. In a culture as work-obsessed as ours, it's OK to lean out some and still stay connected.

"Work is about getting certain things done by using your skills and your intelligence and your network, and so whatever you do there creates an aura," Ozcelik said. "And then if you are connected to that environment, that's great. You are not a lonely employee. But that doesn't mean that there are people there who love you."

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• Two NASA astronauts are still in space after Boeing's Starliner spacecraft faced delays.
• The spacecraft's plight adds to the pressure on Boeing.
• The company faces questions over safety after a door plug on one of its planes blew out in midair.

When Boeing announced in 2015 that its $4.2 billion spacecraft would be named Starliner, NASA officials hailed the manufacturer's innovation as a "great victory" that heralded the start of a new age of space exploration.

Nearly a decade later, that new era is off to a rocky start.

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni William are still in space after the Starliner spacecraft, which was designed to ferry NASA personnel to and from the International Space Station, was hit by a series of issues on its maiden crewed voyage.

The aviation giant's first commercial spaceship experienced malfunctioning thrusters and several helium leaks as it docked with the ISS.

The two astronauts aboard Starliner were planned to be at the space station for a little over a week, but Boeing and NASA have delayed their return to Earth to sometime in July.

The FT reported on Wednesday that Boeing said Starliner was performing well and the astronauts were not stranded. "It is a test flight," the company said. "The mission is still going and it is going well."

It echoes similar previous comments by both Boeing and NASA that the Starliner is safe and operating effectively.

Officials have stressed that the latest delay is simply to allow ground teams to assess the five helium leaks and thruster issues the craft has experienced.

Still, Starliner's teething issues add to the multitude of woes facing outgoing Boeing CEO David Calhoun.

The airplane maker has been in a state of crisis since the door plug on a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane flown by Alaska Airlines blew out in midair earlier this year.

Since then, a series of whistleblowers have come forward with allegations about Boeing's approach to safety, with one describing a "schedule over safety" culture in which employees were pressured to "overlook" concerns.

The company previously told BI that those allegations were not representative of the work it has done to "ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft."

Boeing is facing federal investigations into the door blowout incident and a Southwest Airlines flight, which experienced a potentially dangerous "Dutch roll" movement while in the air.

The company could also soon be hit by criminal charges after the Department of Justice accused it of violating a settlement agreement over two 737 Max 8 crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019.

It's no wonder that Boeing is reportedly struggling to recruit Calhoun's successor.

The company has faced furious criticism from lawmakers and airlines, with the CEO of Boeing's biggest customer, United, describing the Alaska Airlines incident as "the straw that broke the camel's back."

At a Senate hearing last week, the company was accused of "cutting corners" on safety. Sen. Richard Blumenthal described it as a "moment of reckoning" for the company.

Understandably, repeated Starliner delays are a setback that Boeing does not need. The spacecraft was already years late and $1.5 billion over budget when it launched earlier this month, and Boeing is lagging behind rival SpaceX, which has been transporting astronauts to the ISS since 2020.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is never one to miss the opportunity to trash talk a rival, and Boeing's plight is no exception.

The billionaire has frequently criticized Boeing on X, posting that the company had too many "non-technical managers" and calling out Calhoun's lack of an engineering background.

NASA and Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside normal working hours.

• The median home price in May was $442,500, up from $441,000 in 2023, according to Realtor.com.
• Still, several big US cities saw home prices drop in May compared to the same time period in 2023.
• Miami saw the biggest decline — home prices fell by 11.2% year-over-year to $439,000.

The adage "what goes up must come down" is especially true in the real-estate market, where a slowdown in homebuying has led to price declines in cities across the country.

The median sales price for the entire US actually went up a bit — to $442,500 — in May from the previous May, which means buying a home hasn't become significantly more affordable for the typical American since last year.

However, with would-be buyers holding back, leading to less competition for homes, home prices in several major US metros have dropped by thousands of dollars, according to a new report from Realtor.com.

It comes down to consistently high mortgage rates and an overall increase in home financing costs, which have sidelined many prospective buyers.

"Higher mortgage rates compared with last May increased the monthly cost of financing 80% of the median home by roughly $158 compared with a year ago," said Danielle Hale, Redfin's chief economist. "This increased the required household income to purchase the median-priced home by $6,400, to $119,700, after also accounting for the cost of tax and insurance."

While this locks many Americans out of the market, it's good news for those who can still afford to buy a home in their area.

In pandemic boomtowns like Miami and Austin, which drew thousands of homebuyers looking for relatively affordable homes and more space, a pullback in demand has caused homes to stay on the market longer, prompting many sellers to reduce their prices.

In May, home prices in Miami and Austin dropped by 11.2% and 3.1%, respectively, compared to the same period in 2023, according to the report.

Realtor.com analyzed data from 50 of the largest US metros to calculate which ones saw the largest home-price declines in May.

Below are the 11 big cities with the largest price drops.

11. Raleigh, North Carolina

• Median home price: $462,000
• Percentage change year over year: -2.6%

10. San Antonio, Texas

• Median home price: $348,000
• Percentage change year over year: -2.6%

9. Detroit

• Median home price: $260,000
• Percentage change year over year: -3%

8. Austin

• Median home price: $565,000
• Percentage change year over year: -3.1%

7. Tampa, Florida

• Median home price: $425,000
• Percentage change year over year: -3.2%

6. San Jose, California

• Median home price: $1,469,000
• Percentage change year over year: -4.0%

5. Oklahoma City

• Median home price: $339,000
• Percentage change year over year: -4.3%

4. Kansas City, Missouri

• Median home price: $440,000
• Percentage change year over year: -4.9%

3. Seattle

• Median home price: $777,000
• Percentage change year over year: -5.5%

2. Denver

• Median home price: $639,000
• Percentage change year over year: -6.3%

1. Miami

• Median home price: $439,000
• Percentage change year over year: -11.2%

• Drone dogfights in Ukraine have drawn comparison to the aerial battles of WWI.
• In just two years, drone operators have become much more sophisticated.
• BI reviewed over 40 drone dogfights to see some of the main tactics that have emerged.

The sheer scale of drone use in Ukraine has given rise to an increasing battle for the skies, and the rise of drone-on-drone dogfights.

Thousands of uncrewed aerial vehicles take to the skies over Ukraine, serving a wide range of tasks such as directing artillery fire, surveillance, and acting as loitering munitions.

It's a set of tasks so integral to the fighting that earlier this month Ukraine's military launched the world's first stand-alone branch dedicated solely to drone warfare.

Before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the world had only seen a handful of drone-on-drone incidents.

But now, Russia and Ukraine are "engaged in a 'drone arms race,' investing vast amounts of money, time, and expertise in developing and countering each other's systems," James Patton Rogers, a drone expert and director of the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute, told BI.

Today, drones that once used their explosive payloads on multimillion-dollar armored vehicles are choosing to target other drones instead because of the threat they pose, Mike Monnik, CEO of drone intelligence platform DroneSec, told BI.

BI reviewed more than 40 videos of drone-on-drone skirmishes over Ukraine, collected and annotated by DroneSec, to identify some of the distinct — and often overlapping — tactics that have rapidly developed in this short period.

(BI was unable to independently verify some of the videos, which are often shared by partisan groups.)

Dropping down from above

The cheap and plentiful DJI Mavic drone has limited visibility directly overhead — meaning that a drone hovering above is a distinct threat.

The clip above, posted by a pro-Russian channel in early April, shows a Russian drone smashing directly down onto a Ukrainian DJI Mavic-3 drone, sending it tumbling out of the sky.

In early 2022, "much of this was by chance," Monnik said. He described how a small commercial drone out on reconnaissance might notice an enemy drone in the sky, fly above it, and drop down to clip its rotors.

"At this stage, in many occurrences, both drones would actually be disabled," Monnik said.

By 2024, DroneSec said it was seeing first-person view drones kitted out with proximity or remote detonation capabilities.

Crashing into an expensive drone with your cheap one

One of the simplest attacks is using an FPV drone to crash into an enemy drone, with or without an explosive attached.

Given that the attacking drone is often a write-off too, the biggest win is when a cheap device takes out something costly.

The above footage, shared on June 1, shows a Russian Orlan-10 drone being pursued by a Ukrainian FPV, with the video then cutting out.

The footage then shows an Orlan on the ground, seemingly destroyed by the encounter.

Orlan drones, which cost between $87,000-$120,000, have proved to be one of the "most critical systems contributing to the lethality" of Russian forces, according to the Royal United Services Institute.

Meanwhile, the most commonly used FPV drones cost just a few thousand dollars.

Dropping explosives on a drone in midair

Another type of attack from above, but this time by releasing an explosive directly onto the drone below, as in this footage of Ukrainian Mavic-3 drones being knocked out by Russian drones from above.

Ukrainian soldiers told BI last year how they began adapting COTS drones to carry munitions that could be dropped from above.

Flinging a net onto an enemy drone

In February 2023, Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security said it had received six US-made DroneHunter F700s, an AI-backed drone that can shoot a net over targets in midair.

Footage shared by the CSCIS shows the tech being used to take out Orlan drones and Shaheds, the large loitering munitions used by Russia to pummel Ukrainian infrastructure.

According to Scientific American, DroneHunter F700s have been in use in Ukraine since May 2022.

It appears Russia may have acquired similar tech. In the below video, posted in April by a pro-Russian account, a small drone — identified as Ukrainian — is ensnared in a net fired from above.

Hassling a drone before it can release its payload

In the footage below, shared in May, a Ukrainian drone strikes an explosive payload carried by a Russian DJI Mavic-3 drone before it can be released, according to DroneSec's analysis.

Skip the drone — take out the pilot

There are plenty of other ways of countering enemy drones, including hitting them at their source, Patton Rogers told BI.

Drones can be sent to look for antenna peeking out of windows — "a tell-tale sign of an enemy drone pilot covertly operating," he said.

"Once identified, single or multiple drones will be sent in to eliminate the human drone pilot," he added.

In the future, drones could take down helicopters

According to Scientific American, the market for counter-drone technology could be worth $12.6 billion by 2030, and given drone warfare developments, it might need to be.

Monnik said DroneSec has already seen multiple attempts to use small, weaponized drones to target helicopters and small aircraft.

Aircraft appear to be fighting back — in April, footage shared by multiple accounts showed what was described as a Ukrainian Yak-52 trainer plane taking on an Orlan. Further reporting from The War Zone suggests this is not a lone phenomenon.

Monnik also predicted that we'll soon see drones equipped with gun-like weapon platforms, and a greater prevalence of drones being deployed in swarm-like formations.

It's tempting to compare the phenomenon to the dogfights of World War I more than a century ago, when pilots targeted each other with front-mounted machine guns or even pistols while flying.

"There is still a visceral real-world connection between both warring parties — perhaps more so than WWI air personnel — as pilots attempt to outwit each other," Patton Rogers said.

The last thing many of the drone pilots will see through their doomed drone's viewfinders is the enemy drone — knowing that somewhere, at the other end, an enemy pilot is watching it all on their own headset, he said.

"Such is the morbid intimacy of modern war," he said.

• Growing up, Simmy Dhillon watched his parents struggle in blue-collar jobs.
• During college, he started developing a meal delivery business with his brother.
• The brothers have since been able to fund their parents' lifestyles and retire them.

This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Simmy Dhillon, from London, about financially supporting his parents. Business Insider has verified their payments with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I come from a working-class family. My dad's parents moved to the UK from India in the 1960s and worked in factories. My dad also went into a factory job, where he stayed for 25 years.

My mum was born in India and came to the UK when she was very young. She worked as a cashier at Tesco, a supermarket chain, for 20 years.

They stayed in their blue-collar jobs for so long because they couldn't afford to take risks. They provided stability and support for myself and my brother, Jhai. As we grew up, we were both motivated to work hard. Many young people go out partying and drinking, but Jhai and I never really did that. It felt disrespectful to our parents.

I set high expectations for myself. I wanted to be able to take care of my parents so they wouldn't have to struggle.

I started my own business and retired my mum roughly 2 years later

I launched my business, Rice N Spice, in 2017 as a 20-year-old student. I cooked and delivered healthy meals to other students at my university. I initially ran it part-time, and after a few months, I asked Jhai to help me. Over the last few years, he and I grew it to the point where we could retire both my parents by the time I turned 27. It's been my proudest achievement, and I don't think anything can top it.

My brother and I now both work on the business full-time. He runs our kitchen operations team, and I run the office team, which has seven full-time employees, excluding myself.

Over the last seven years, we've grown the business into a national meal delivery service. We're now called Simmer Eats. Our revenue last year was £6 million, which is around $7.6 million.

My mum was involved in the business in the early days because we needed extra hands. She helped with cooking, delivering meals, and picking up supplies. For the first year, it was just the three of us.

By 2019, we were generating enough income that my mom could leave her supermarket job, and we could put her on a higher salary as an employee of Simmer Eats.

It was our long-term ambition to retire her. She made sure we had a good childhood, working multiple part-time jobs alongside her Tesco job. I felt we had stopped her from having the career she wanted.

In 2019, Jhai and I took my mum out for a birthday dinner and told her she could resign and never have to work for anyone else again. I rarely see one of my parents cry, but I could see little tears in her eyes.

She left her supermarket job, but she was having a lot of fun working with us, so she stayed involved in the business until 2022.

I'd dreamt of retiring my parents, but it was unbelievable that we could do it so quickly. I felt really proud.

I convinced my dad to quit his factory job

I felt a sense of urgency in retiring my dad, too. His factory job was physically demanding, and he felt trapped in it.

I recently found out that when my dad first got the job, his father told him to stay employed there until after he was due to pay off his mortgage. He thought it was a good job because it was relatively well-paid compared to other factory jobs. His father died soon after, and I think the promise my dad made to him is part of the reason he stayed in it for so long.

I eventually convinced him it was OK to leave his job, and we could take care of him financially. He left in January this year.

My parents live much more comfortably now

Now, we fully fund our parents' lifestyles, and they don't have to worry about being unable to afford things. This year, we gave them £37,500 each in dividends, as they are shareholders in the company. We'll likely pay them a similar amount each year.

Outside that, we take them out for dinner and to the cinema. Last year, I took my mom to India for a holiday, and we also got my dad a new car in February.

I've also paid for my dad to have surgery in a private hospital. He couldn't have afforded that on the salary from his job.

In June, we paid a lump sum of around £51,000 using dividends from the business to pay off my parents' mortgage. It's great that we've been able to take that pressure and stress off of them.

My parents are still relatively young, in their 50s, so they've got years to enjoy themselves. We go to the gym together as a family. Dad is trying to spend more time reading and says he wants to learn to play the trumpet. Mum does yoga, goes walking, and meets her friends. They're so unstressed now.

We felt we had more money coming in than we needed, so before we started upgrading our own lifestyles, it was only right to pay for things that would have a huge impact on our parents' lives.

That said, we haven't had a huge lifestyle inflation where we go all out on luxury. We can enjoy things like not worrying about menu prices or getting a taxi home from the airport instead of the bus — but we don't spend much on things we don't need.

Since my brother and I are quite frugal, we haven't had to reduce our spending to take care of our parents. We regularly save and invest so even if our business stopped growing so much, I think we would be OK.

I don't think I could have retired my family with a salaried job

The world is becoming more unequal and it's very difficult for people who grew up without money to become financially comfortable. I'm lucky that the business has taken off and has enabled me to provide my family with financial stability. It's fulfilled a childhood dream.

If I had a salaried job, even if it paid well, I don't think I'd be able to support my family in the same way. That's partly because running a business is more tax-efficient than being an employee, and there are no caps on earning potential.

I've achieved a lot already, but if my business became a billion-pound company, I don't think that would be as special as what we've been able to achieve for our parents.

• I'm a professional declutterer and work with clients on getting rid of things they don't need. 
• The more time bedding spends in contact with your body, the sooner you need to replace it. 
• Pillowcases last three to five years, while comforters last 15 years or more. 

As a professional declutterer, I know there are some items in the house that beg to be replaced, and then there are those you don't think about all that often.

When was the last time you really looked at your sheets or comforter? You use them every day, but you may have failed to notice that your linens could be past their prime.

Spring cleaning season is over, but it's never a bad time to examine your bedding and swap out the stuff that's worn out or uncomfortable. Some bedding lasts longer than others. Rule of thumb: the less time it spends next to your body, the longer it will last. Why? Well, because we're humans, and we're kinda filthy, even when we shower daily.

You should change pillowcases more often

Sheets and pillowcases can enjoy a nice long life, depending on their materials and the amount of use they get. Not surprisingly, the cheaper they were to begin with, the more often you'll have to replace them. On average, they should last you three to five years. If you've got multiple sets and rotate them regularly, you can hold on to them longer.

Once they're pilling, stained, or threadbare, they're done. Your tolerance may vary, but be nice to yourself. Buy the best quality you can and replace them as soon as you no longer sigh with pleasure when you slip into them at the end of the day.

Pillows should be washed often

You're used to washing your sheets and pillowcases weekly, but you may be forgetting about the pillows themselves. Pillowcases will protect them to some extent, but you should really be laundering your pillows every six months or so.

It turns out this is pretty easy; most can be tossed in the washing machine. But read the care instructions — you don't want to mess up your pillows or your washer. The adage that you get what you pay for is generally true. If you're springing for high-quality feather pillows you can keep them for decades, provided you're cleaning and fluffing them regularly.

If you prefer polyfill, cotton, or foam, you'll need to swap those out more frequently. Replace them every two to three years, but the real test is how they feel. Once you notice clumping or lumpiness, it's time to go shopping.

Mattresses and comforters last longer

Common wisdom is that a mattress lasts about 10 years. If you opt for something super fancy (and expensive), you may get more mileage out of it, but once you start to notice any sagging, it's time to get a new one. Don't put this off; your joints and back may never forgive you. Options abound when it comes to materials, and it's easier than ever to get a good mattress for not a lot of money.

Comforters are the real workhorses of the bed linens. They should last from 15 to 25 years, provided you're keeping yours in a duvet cover that's washed regularly. Since comforters are lying on you, rather than the other way around, they can maintain their shape and loft for ages. Wash it once or twice a year according to the manufacturer's instructions, and store it in a dry, non-musty cupboard when you're not using it.

Here's the real deal: once any aspect of your bedding starts to feel less than dreamily comfortable, it's probably time to replace it. Americans are already short on rest. A recent Gallup poll indicates that fewer than half of us feel we're getting enough sleep. The numbers bear this out; over the past century the national average of hours we're snoozing each night has dropped precipitously. Obviously, bedding isn't to blame, but why not create the coziest nest possible?

Once you've decided to replace your sheets or pillows, get the old ones out of the house. You cannot save them "just in case." You are allowed to turn sheets into drop cloths or tear them up for cleaning rags, but once they've passed their prime, get rid of them. You deserve nice things.

• Louie Chan started travel nursing after working for two years in a lower-wage nursing position.
• Travel nursing doubled her salary and renewed her passion for the job, but she says it was lonely.
• Chan left travel nursing to become a full-time nurse coordinator and made over $200,000 last year.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Louie Chan, a 30-year-old nurse in the Bay Area. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

When I went to college in 2012, I couldn't decide what to major in. My Filipino parents emphasized the importance of a stable job because it would bring freedom. This was important to them because we didn't have much money growing up.

I decided to pursue nursing, a career path common among Filipinos. It turned out to be a perfect fit for me. When I graduated from nursing school in 2017, I took my first job as a telemetry nurse in southern California, earning $37 an hour.

After two years of working at that same hospital, I grew my wages to $45 an hour, which was below the average hourly rate for nurses in California. We didn't have a nursing union at that hospital to ask for better wages and got very small yearly raises.

I started travel nursing in 2020 to earn more

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, I heard there was a bigger need than usual for travel nurses. I decided to take a leap of faith, leave my family behind, and move to Texas for my first gig as a travel nurse. The agency I signed up to work for placed me in Texas. I didn't have a say in where I went for that first assignment.

I was motivated to sign up because the pay was extraordinary. I worked six days a week and did 12-to-14-hour shifts. While this was more than my usual schedule, I was making almost triple my former amount — I went from earning $45 an hour to around $121 an hour.

I worked at that job for a couple of months and then returned to California to rest for a few weeks. After that, I spent two years working as a travel nurse at different hospitals. I doubled my salary, grew my career, and regained my passion for the job.

A typical travel nursing job lasts 13 weeks, and the rates fluctuate

Hospitals bring in travel nurses because they're short-staffed. Most travel nursing opportunities are for 13 weeks at a specific location. After that, you can extend your contract for another 13 weeks or longer, depending on the hospital's needs.

I found open positions through travel-nursing agencies. When I returned from working in Texas, I worked at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto. As COVID-19 got worse, my pay as a travel nurse got higher. I made anywhere from $6,000 to $9,000 a week.

Usually, I worked six days on and eight days off. I liked the travel nursing schedule because it improved my work-life balance. I used my free time to travel around the cities I lived in and start a side hustle as a content creator.

Because travel nurses live away from home, we're given a tax-free stipend that covers housing and meals. I'd usually find an inexpensive hotel or rent a short-term apartment near the hospital.

The best part of the job is getting to live in new cities

As a travel nurse, you must be a fast learner because you enter a new hospital and start working almost immediately. It's a job for people who love being independent and can quickly pick up on the hospital's work culture and policies.

I loved the flexibility. I'd work at one hospital for 13 weeks and then take a month off to rest or travel before starting a new job elsewhere.

There are travel nursing jobs all over the world. I've always been interested in living in another country like Japan or Australia and would consider taking a travel nursing job abroad. If you're a nurse who wants a change of scenery, this is a dream opportunity, but there are some downsides.

It can be quite lonely

When working in a new place, you might not have the time to get to know people or make friends. When my shifts were done, I'd usually explore the city on my own, and every now and then, I'd make friends at work who I'd hang out with during my stay.

Some other nurses weren't nice to travel nurses because they knew we were making more money than them. I remember getting the worst patient assignments because I wasn't part of the core staff. There were also times when a group of nurses ordered food and invited everyone on the floor except the travel nurses. I didn't let their attitudes or comments bother me.

In other hospitals, the nurses were so grateful to have help because they were overworked and overwhelmed by the number of patients. In those jobs, I felt like I was making a difference.

Look into the tax implications of the job before deciding to become a travel nurse

People get into travel nursing and think they can give up their apartment, pack a suitcase, and live on the road. Travel nurses get tax-free stipends because the IRS assumes they're duplicating their expenses by paying for housing at home and where they live for the job.

Before committing to being a travel nurse, speak with a CPA or tax advisor to understand how to keep those tax-free stipends so you don't accidentally commit tax fraud. While I was a travel nurse, I was still making monthly payments on a house in California.

My days as a travel nurse are over

I'm now a full-time nurse coordinator in the Bay Area and enjoy working at my current hospital. I don't see myself pursuing travel nursing in the US again because I made over $200,000 last year and it's a healthy working environment. I also still make content on the side and may one day focus on that.

My experience as a travel nurse taught me that I have more nursing knowledge and critical care skills than I thought. It also taught me that I can live independently away from home.

Regardless of your career, you can't wait around and hope for a raise. Sometimes, you need to be the one to take bold actions and get paid what you deserve.