WORKPLACE SAFETY

OSHA tells Amazon to improve N.J. warehouse

Amazon.com Inc. failed to report at least 26 work-related illnesses and injuries in a New Jersey warehouse last year, a federal agency said, the latest indication that low-wage employees who rush to fetch online orders often bear the pain of the speedy, convenient delivery of goods. The Seattle-based Web retailer faces a $7,000 fine and demands to change its warehouse work environment, according to a citation. The action stems from a July inspection by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that Amazon failed to report workplace injuries and exposed employees to amputation risks and failed to provide protective gear. Medical personnel hired by Amazon also provided services beyond their expertise when tending to workers’ medical needs. As Amazon’s online sales have grown — analysts project revenue will climb 20 percent to $107.2 billion this year — so has its need to expand its network of fulfillment centers and hire more workers to complete online orders. During the latest holiday shopping season, the Web retailer added more than 100,000 extra staff, who pick items in warehouses as large as several football fields. In 2013, a temporary worker at an Amazon warehouse in New Jersey was crushed to death in a package-sorting conveyor system. — BLOOMBERG

LABOR

Job postings rise 1.5 percent in November

US employers advertised slightly more jobs in November as overall hiring edged up and more Americans quit their jobs in signs of a healthier environment for workers. The Labor Department said Tuesday that the number of job postings rose 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted 5.4 million. That figure has slipped after peaking at a record 5.7 million in July, but stands 11 percent higher than a year ago. The annual increase shows that employers remain confident despite the financial turmoil in China, lower oil prices, and a European economy tenuously emerging from its recent struggles. Only manufacturers have pulled back on job openings over the past 12 months, a reflection of the stronger dollar and weak international growth hurting sales abroad. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

EUROPEAN UNION

Complaint hits McDonald’s treatment of franchisees

The European Union will analyze an antitrust complaint that accuses fast food giant McDonald’s of abusing its dominant position at the expense of both its franchisees and consumers. The complaint comes on top of an EU investigation opened last month into whether McDonald’s received a sweet tax deal from Luxembourg. An alliance of Italian consumer groups backed by trade unions claims that McDonald’s forces franchisees to lease property it owns at excessive prices and imposes restrictive contracts. They say that can force franchisees to charge higher prices and offer inferior quality of goods to consumers. McDonald’s defended its operating practices with franchisees. McDonald’s has almost 8,000 restaurants in Europe, of which about three-quarters are franchised. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

FINANCE

BlackRock promotes two in reorganization

BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money-manager, named Rich Kushel to head multi-asset strategies and Tim Webb to oversee global fixed income in its third reorganization since 2012. Ken Kroner, who led both the multi-asset strategies and scientific active equity business, will retire later this year, according to a memo provided by the firm. Philipp Hildebrand, currently chairman of multi-asset strategies, will lead the BlackRock Investment Institute. BlackRock will also combine its fundamental and scientific active equity groups, and set up a new real assets group. Chief executive Laurence D. Fink, 63, and president Robert Kapito, 57, have previously promoted younger executives to senior roles after a number of the firm’s cofounders left or retired from active positions. — BLOOMBERG

BONDS

Sale by Spain draws strong response

Spain received more than 29 billion euros, or $31.5 billion, of orders for its first bond sale of the year, showing that investors are shrugging off the political upheaval gripping the nation. The government was said to have sold 9 billion euros of 10-year securities in a deal that Kim Liu, a fixed-income strategist at ABN Amro NV, described as “very good.’’ The response bodes well for a week of heavy issuance of euro-zone debt, with Spain itself due to offer as much as 5 billion euros of bonds with maturities up to 2023 on Thursday. — BLOOMBERG

COMMODITIES

Price of cocoa takes a tumble

Cocoa, last year’s best-performing commodity, is already erasing its 2015 gain. Better-than-expected supplies from West Africa, prospects for sluggish chocolate demand, and a broader commodity-market sell-off sent cocoa tumbling since the start of the year on ICE Futures in New York. Prices on Tuesday touched the lowest in almost nine months. The slide is wiping out last year’s 10 percent increase, the biggest gain among the 24 raw materials in the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Spot Index. — BLOOMBERG

OIL

BP to eliminate 4,000 more jobs

The persistent plunge in oil prices has translated into a new round of industry job cuts. The British oil giant BP said Tuesday that it would eliminate 4,000 of the approximately 24,000 positions in its exploration and production units this year. That would be in addition to about 4,000 jobs that the company cut last year, when it trimmed its workforce to about 80,000. After oil prices began dropping in 2014, BP was among the companies warning that the price plunge could be deep and sustained. After falling about one-third last year, prices are down an additional 15 percent in the first 12 days of 2016. An estimated 250,000 oil industry jobs have been lost worldwide since the long price decline began. — NEW YORK TIMES

PRIVACY

E-mails during work hours aren’t protected, EU court says

Bosses can snoop on workers’ e-mails including personal messages with loved ones during working hours, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in a case brought by a Romanian man fired after his employer spied on his private Yahoo! Inc. chats. “It is not unreasonable for an employer to want to verify that the employees are completing their professional tasks during working hours,’’ the court in Strasbourg, France, ruled Tuesday. While the case dates back to 2007, the ruling comes at a time when governments and courts around the world are grappling with how to balance the right to privacy with the need to protect national security in the wake of Islamist terror attacks such as those in Paris last year. The court’s decision will also certainly guide the European Union’s top tribunal in future cases and rulings, said lawyers. — BLOOMBERG

TECHNOLOGY

Chinese billionaire takes majority stake in Grindr

One of China’s newly-minted technology billionaires signed a deal to buy a controlling stake in Grindr, the gay social-networking app. Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., an Internet games company that helped introduce Angry Birds to China, offered $93 million in cash for 60 percent of New Grindr LLC, the company said in a statement to the Shenzhen stock exchange. Beijing Kunlun chairman Zhou Yahui, worth $1.7 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has overseen seven deals for Kunlun since April — including Grindr and a minority stake in British mortgage lender LendInvest Ltd. Grindr, which calls itself the world’s largest gay social network, hosts 2 million visitors daily across 196 countries, according to a company fact sheet. The Los Angeles-based mobile app was released in 2009 and matches users based on personal photos and location. China’s attitude toward homosexuality has undergone a radical transformation in the past decade. Recently, the gay scene has seen a resurgence. Blued, a domestic gay social-networking app founded by a former police officer, has attracted more than 3 million daily users and secured funding from venture capitalists DCM Ventures. — BLOOMBERG