The share of outstanding US consumer debt that’s in delinquency rose in the fourth quarter to the highest in almost five years, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report.

Some 3.6% of debt was delinquent in the final three months of 2024, the most since the second quarter of 2020, the New York Fed said Thursday in its Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. Total houssehold debt — which is primarily composed of mortgages, student loans, auto loans and credit-card balances — rose 0.5% to a record $18 trillion.

The report suggests Americans are increasingly struggling financially as they face a third year of elevated interest rates imposed by the US central bank in its campaign to bring inflation down. New York Fed researchers pointed to auto loans in particular as a source of strain in an article accompanying the report.

Transitions into serious delinquency — defined as 90 or more days past due — edged up for auto loans, credit cards, and home equity line of credit balances but remained stable for mortgages, according to the report. The share of auto loans that transitioned into serious delinquency rose to 3%, the highest since 2010, while the share of credit-card balances transitioning into serious delinquency, at 7.2%, matched the highest since 2011.

Chevron to reduce workforce

Chevron Corp. plans to cut its global workforce by 15% to 20% by next year, as part of efforts to reduce costs and raise profits.

The U.S. oil giant employed 46,500 people globally at the end of 2023, meaning the cuts could affect as many as 9,000 employees. The company recently moved its headquarters from San Ramon to Houston, Texas, and is targeting $2 billion to $3 billion of structural cost reductions by 2026.

Chevron has underperformed Exxon Mobil Corp. over the past three years as it struggled to match its rival’s production growth while commodity prices rallied after the Covid-19 pandemic. The stock has begun to make up some ground over the past year with strong growth from the Permian Basin and the recent start up of its long-delayed Tengiz development in Kazakhstan.

Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth has expressed his desire to focus on harvesting cash-flow coupled with modest spending on new projects over the next few years, potentially lessening the need for staff.

Google Calendar alters listings

Google’s online calendar has removed default references for a handful of holidays and cultural events — with users noticing that mentions of Pride and Black History Month, as well as other observances, no longer appear in their desktop and mobile applications.

The omissions gained attention online over the last week, particularly around upcoming events that are no longer automatically listed. But Google says it made the change midway through last year.

The California-based tech giant said it manually added “a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries” for several years, supplementing public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com that have been used to populate Google Calendar for over a decade. Still, the company added, it received feedback about some other missing events and countries.

“Maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable,” Google said in a statement sent to The Associated Press.

Disney softens diversity criteria

Walt Disney Co. is removing diversity from the criteria for determining manager compensation, saying leaders will now be assessed in part on how well they uphold company values and incorporate different perspectives.

Disney is also sunsetting the Reimagine Tomorrow inclusion program, which had drawn controversy. The conservative America First Legal Foundation filed a federal civil rights complaint against the company last year, claiming the program included directions for hiring that amounted to discrimination.

The Burbank-based entertainment giant is the latest company to soften its focus on diversity, equity and inclusion amid a growing backlash against such policies by predominantly conservative groups. In recent weeks, companies including McDonald’s Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. have rolled back DEI programs, with President Donald Trump’s administration increasingly questioning their legality.

Compiled from Bloomberg and Associated Press reports.