Court ruling averts Google breakup; Flat job openings could signal Fed rate cut; Office attendance edges higher

A U.S. District Court this week decided Google will not have to divest its Chrome browser or Android phone operating system after the Department of Justice sought to break up the technology giant on antitrust grounds.

Though Google was found last year by the courts to hold an illegal monopoly in internet searches, Judge Amit Mehta did not order divestments. But Google was ordered to share some search data with “qualified competitors,” though not as much data as the government had requested. Mehta put some restrictions on payments Google makes to other firms, such as Apple, to get prime placement on phones and web browsers, but did not ban those payments altogether.

It was not immediately clear how a breakup might have affected Mountain View, California-based Google’s real estate demand. Like many of its rivals, Google and parent firm Alphabet have been investing heavily in new data centers geared to artificial intelligence and related technologies that support search and other information processing services.

This week’s decision “recognizes how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI, which is giving people so many more ways to find information,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said in a statement. She said the company is reviewing potential effects on privacy, now that some search data will be shared with rivals.

“The Court did recognize that divesting Chrome and Android would have gone beyond the case’s focus on search distribution, and would have harmed consumers and our partners,” Mulholland said. 

July’s essentially unchanged levels of U.S. job openings, hires and resignations were the latest signs of a slowing employment climate, possibly setting the stage for a Federal Reserve interest rate cut this month, according to forecasting firm Oxford Economics.

The Labor Department Wednesday reported 7.2 million job openings as of the last business day of July, basically unchanged from the prior month. The same held for both hires and separations, each posting at 5.3 million for July. Separations include resignations and layoffs.

Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, said those numbers and the forecasting firm’s own job projections for August point to a rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting scheduled for Sept. 16-17. The Fed has kept rates unchanged for the past several months.

“The hiring rate remains low, and while the layoff rate is also still relatively low, keeping a lid on the unemployment rate, it has ticked higher and layoffs for June were revised up sharply,” Vanden Houten said in a statement. She said a low resignation rate underscores a trend of workers staying put, signaling that wage growth “will not be a source of inflationary pressure.” 

Late summer office traffic held steady as attendance for 10 tracked U.S. regions averaged 52.4% of their pre-pandemic level for the week ended Aug. 27, according to the latest Kastle Systems data. That was up slightly from the prior week’s 52.3% and also topped the 48.5% average for the comparable week of 2024.

Based on anonymous keycard data from the security technology firm’s office property clients, the 10-region average has consistently surpassed 52% for seven straight weeks. It has steadily topped 50% since late January, peaking at 54.9% in mid-July.

The latest Kastle numbers showed Austin, Texas, reaching a post-pandemic high of 70% of its pre-pandemic attendance. It was followed by Houston at 61.5%, Dallas at 60.8%, Chicago at 56.3% and Washington, D.C., at 49.3%.

A Kastle spokesperson attributed the high office usage in Texas markets around this time to local schools beginning the year earlier than other cities the company tracks, leading to more workers in offices since the summer vacation season is over.

The recent spike in Austin could also be because of the state legislature being in special session, leading to more activity in offices for government-related industries, the Kastle spokesperson said. The spokesperson said information was not readily available on the types of buildings it tracks in various cities across the country.