Intel pauses some hiring, inflation hits lawn services, Amy Schumer blamed for tampon shortage

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss Intel's hiring freeze, inflation impacting landscape services, and Procter & Gamble blaming Amy Schumer for the nationwide tampon shortage.

Video Transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

BRAD SMITH: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live, everyone. All right, we are short on time here. But we've got three stories that we had to cut for time that we didn't get to. All right, so basically, we all get one minute that we're going to put on the clock here. And first up, we've got to talk about Intel, pausing hiring in its PC and chip division for at least two weeks. That's according to Reuters here. I mean, this just adds on to the slew of tech companies that we've seen either announcing hiring freezes or some incremental cuts.

BRIAN SOZZI: We have multi speeds now, two different tracks going on over at Intel. One, they're putting new plants around the world to make chips. And then secondarily, they're seeing really competitive pressure from the likes of AMD and Nvidia in other parts of their business. So they're probably going to have to get a little bit linear. Now we talked to Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger a couple of weeks ago at the World Economic Forum. Also said chip shortage continuing until 2024.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, and we saw, by the way, chip stocks down yesterday, in particular, after Intel came out and made these comments, particularly about slowing demand. That's the real difference here, right? It's not that they can't make their chips fast enough anymore. Now there seems to be a tipping over into slowing demand. Another example of that, Sharp, the TV maker, talking about deteriorating demand for large LCD panels--

BRIAN SOZZI: And for Roku. They are big and connected TVs.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, and it's also a reflection of what we heard from Target that some of the electronics, consumer electronics sales are rolling over.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, I mean, for anybody who's in the chip design versus the chip fabrication, that's--

[BUZZING]

--what's going to be what we need to watch right here.

BRIAN SOZZI: You got buzzed. This is your segment. You got buzzed on your own segment.

JULIE HYMAN: All right. Go, Sozz.

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, keeping on. Inflation is hitting lawncare. The price of lawn mowing services is up 22% this year. And tree trimming increased 9% year over year, according to home services company, Angie. And then this story, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal, certainly brought back fond memories of me cutting my lawn at 6:00 AM because if I did, I wasn't getting dinner.

But still, interesting inflationary part of the business. Now my brother Gary told me this morning, he's paying about 40 bucks a week to get his lawn cut, normal-sized house. So there is inflation in lawns, which comes at a time where you have Scotts Miracle-Gro warning out there about inflation hitting its business.

BRAD SMITH: Were you a push mower or a riding mower?

BRIAN SOZZI: Push mower. We didn't have any of that stuff. Couldn't afford that stuff.

JULIE HYMAN: Oh, the complicated tapestry that is Brian Sozzi's childhood.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, we don't have enough time for that.

JULIE HYMAN: He likes to--

BRAD SMITH: I had a lawncare business in the neighborhood, yeah.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, gas powered. No electric. No electric back in those days.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, and now you'll be interested to know that they have banned gas powered leaf blowers in my town. So that probably means rates are going to go up even more because it will take more time--

BRIAN SOZZI: I loved hearing--

JULIE HYMAN: --using an electric. Or if you're raking, obviously, that is more labor intensive. And it takes more time.

BRIAN SOZZI: I loved hearing your leaf blowers during the pandemic. [LAUGHS]

JULIE HYMAN: Let me tell you. I have--

BRAD SMITH: I have John Deere's. That's nice.

JULIE HYMAN: How much time do we have? Well, maybe we move on.

[BUZZING]

BRIAN SOZZI: Aw!

JULIE HYMAN: We're going to move on to this last--

BRAD SMITH: The buzzer works. We know it works.

JULIE HYMAN: I'm ready for this last story.

BRIAN SOZZI: I'm not.

BRAD SMITH: There's a tampon shortage, ladies and gentlemen.

BRIAN SOZZI: Oh, OK.

JULIE HYMAN: And we have seen tampon prices go higher. One of the reasons, according to Procter & Gamble, anyway, the maker of Tampax, blaming comedian Amy Schumer, because there was a successful ad campaign. So they said it was so successful, there was lots of demand for tampons. I find this a little rich, by the way, a little hard to believe that this ad campaign-- I mean, if there's a tampon shortage, it's with tampons overall. It's not just with Tampax, right? There are other brands as well.

And not only that, prices are going up for feminine products. According to a story from Bloomberg, which cites Nielsen IQ, average prices for a package of menstrual pads up 8.3% for the year through May 28, 9.8% for tampons. So when we talk about everything, prices going up, this is an important thing. And there already are issues for accessibility of these products for lower income girls and women. And so this does not help matters.

BRIAN SOZZI: Brad, hot take on tampons, go.

BRAD SMITH: I actually used to work in a distribution center for a whole day, actually. I was on staffing, and I got put into that. And so, yeah, I think for what I've seen in the logistics side, it still does come down to making sure that the boxes, the packages, can get from point A to point B, and that you have enough people to do the packaging within those fulfillment centers, too.

JULIE HYMAN: Well, and--

BRIAN SOZZI: Of course, I have no hot take on tampons.

JULIE HYMAN: --making all this stuff, the prices--

[BUZZING]

Cotton prices going up. All this stuff's going up. So--

[BUZZING]

BRIAN SOZZI: Wow, what a way to end the show.

JULIE HYMAN: Oh, I got double buzzed on that.