Virgin delays its Boeing MAX order, tech giants’ tiny Australian tax bill revealed, and more top news

The news Australian professionals are talking about now, curated by LinkedIn’s editors. Join the conversation in the comments below.

Australia’s second-largest airline will defer the delivery of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, after the model was grounded across the world following two fatal crashes. Virgin Australia was due to receive its first MAX 8 in November, but will now not receive any until 2025. It also changed some of the jets in its order from MAX 8s to MAX 10s — the first of which will be delivered in 2021. This is the first big decision from new CEO Paul Scurrah.

Facebook only paid $12M in tax despite making $598M in Australian sales last year, according to a Sydney Morning Herald report. It achieved this, according to the report, by paying $455M to an overseas subsidiary for the "purchase of advertising inventory", leaving it to book net revenues of just $125M in 2018. Australia’s government made legislative changes last year in an attempt to crack down on so-called “profit shifting”.

Also… Google reportedly had Australian sales of $4.3B last year — but paid $3.3B in "service fees" to overseas subsidiaries — leaving it with a $49M tax bill.

The majority (51%) of Australian PhD students want to work in the private sector now, rather than staying in academia, according to a study by the CSIRO and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute. Financial services and insurance, followed by mining, energy and the pharmaceutical sector have been the biggest beneficiaries of this exodus. There has also been a corresponding rise rise in the number of PhD graduates actually finding work outside universities, going from fewer than 50,000 in 2000 to nearly 150,000 in 2018.

Retailers are pleading for any restoration of penalty rates to be phased in. The Labor party has pledged to reverse cuts to penalty rates — decided in 2017 by the independent Fair Work Commission — within 100 days if it were to win an upcoming general election. The Australian Retailers Association (ARA) said that, together with an estimated 3% rise in the minimum wage, this would push Sunday wages up by 21% for permanent workers.

Busyness has become an unhealthy status symbol, argues a column in The New York Times, and it's affecting our wellbeing in profound ways. One piece of advice is to ignore the pressure to do something — anything — and follow what the Dutch call 'niksen.' Essentially, niksen is the art of doing nothing: not meditating; not eating healthy nor being actively mindful but just being idle. The upside of conscious boredom? It drives creativity and increases focus

Idea of the Day: Although we live in a period of “career nomads,” where many employees tend to leave a company after two years, there are ways for leaders to double that tenure, says Korn Ferry CEO Gary Burnison.

“Career development within the company should no longer be approached like a ladder. It’s like a jungle gym, moving up and branching out.”

What's your take on today’s stories? Share your thoughts in the comments.

— Ben Collins