UiPath, a developer of automation software, is cutting 10% of its workforce, or about 420 jobs, as part of a broader restructuring, the company said in filing with the SEC on Tuesday.

Most of the layoffs will be implemented by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2026, the company said. That quarter ends next April.

UiPath shares dropped about 7% on Tuesday and have now lost more than half their value this year. The Nasdaq is up 23% over that stretch. UiPath has faced a dramatic slowing of revenue growth following its IPO in 2021, which was one of the largest U.S. software offerings on record.

While UiPath reported better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter earnings in May, the company lowered its revenue guidance for the full year, and said it now expects between $1.4 billion and $1.41 billion compared with previous guidance of $1.55 billion to $1.56 billion. Its current forecast would equal annual growth of about 7.5%, down from 24% the prior year.

UiPath makes software that automates repetitive tasks. The company announced in May that CEO Rob Enslin was resigning effective June 1, and would be succeeded by co-founder Daniel Dines, who had stepped down as co-CEO in January. That move drove the stock down 30%.

UiPath said Tuesday that it expects to incur $15 million to $20 million in costs related to the layoffs, and total restructuring costs between $17 million and $25 million. The company previously announced two rounds of job cuts in 2022.

“These changes reflect efforts to reshape the organization by streamlining the Company’s structure, particularly in operational and corporate functions, better prioritizing our go-to-market investments and focusing our research and development investments on artificial intelligence and driving innovation across our platform,” UiPath said in Tuesday’s statement.

— CNBC’s Rohan Goswami contributed to this report.

The rise of Asian fast fashion retailer Shein already has Amazon on alert, but its plans of selling proprietary supply-chain technology and services to companies around the world has attracted attention from another corner: U.S. cybersecurity firms and national security experts who warn of the potential for a company with close ties to China spying on the supply chain as it seeks to grow its global logistics footprint.

Shein logistics software is in beta testing with select supply chain customers, according to a person familiar with its plans.

The U.S. supply chain has millions of connection points that link companies of all sizes. What makes the connections hum are application programming interfaces, or APIs, used by companies to increase efficiencies and save money. API software allows applications to communicate with each other in real-time and is crucial to logistics companies to integrate with freight providers, streamline operations, and create efficiencies for providers in their supply chain and ultimately, the end customer.

“The APIs in the logistics infrastructure are very interconnected, often without cybersecurity being contemplated,” said Lee Kair, principal and head of the transportation and innovation practice at The Chertoff Group, who formerly served as a top official at the Transportation Security Administration.

Cyber​​security experts and policy analysts say the supply chain of vendors is constantly changing, and the potential to gain data access is as simple as identifying the weakest link in a company’s data network. Typically, small companies have more vulnerable back-office systems, with weaker cyber protocols. “There is a tremendous amount of logistics integration in the world of fast fashion. These integrations can be compromised for nefarious purposes to expose customer data or compromise other connected systems,” Kair said.

According to data from Exiger, a supply chain intelligence intelligence company used by the U.S. government and critical infrastructure industries for risk management, there is a complex web of entities connected to Shein which indicates the company’s supply chain is more expansive and complex than most people realize. 

Exiger data shows that while Shein has 44 direct relationships, such as with its parent company Zoetop, and discloses over 5,000 suppliers, an analysis of all of its materials producers shows a supply chain connectivity map that expands substantially. In all, 10,821 companies comprise a supply chain one tier away from Shein. Drilling down deeper into that network of those Shein partners, it expands to 50,000-plus entities, including major U.S. companies, such as Forever 21, operated by Authentic Holdings and mall operator Simon Property Group — both of which announced formal partnerships with Shein last year focused on access to bricks-and-mortar retail.

Allowing Shein to embed its technology within U.S. supply chains could undermine the competitive landscape, violate regulatory standards, and introduce a host of risks, including cybersecurity, said Dewardric McNeal, managing director and senior policy analyst at Longview Global, who served as a policy expert on Asia for the Obama administration’s Department of Defense.

“Given the intricate nature of the U.S. and global supply chains, the potential for espionage or data gathering is a significant risk,” McNeal said. “Shein’s software could provide unprecedented access to sensitive supply chain data, which the Chinese government could seize under its laws. This exposure poses a direct threat to U.S. supply chain integrity, making it vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation.”

Shein has made moves to distance itself from Chinese affiliations. In 2022, Shein moved its headquarters from China to Singapore for regulatory and financial reasons. However, the company’s supply chains and warehouses are still in China.

“The concern of any company with significant Chinese ownership and physical presence is the legal framework in China,” Kair said. “Chinese law requires the company’s cooperation in providing sensitive information related to U.S. citizens to the Chinese government. Even with a headquarters based in Singapore, company supply chain data could be subject to seizure by the Chinese. This is a clear vulnerability of U.S. customer data.”

Kair referred to the moving of the company’s headquarters from China to Singapore to ease regulatory scrutiny as another example of the practice known as “Singapore washing.”

There are certifications in place for companies to prove their information security controls meet accepted corporate standards, including a SOC2 Type II Report created by a third party auditing firm to examine a company’s internal controls and how well they safeguard customer data — an audit that can take several months or more. The other primary certification is an ISO 27001 certification, which is the international industry standard for information security management systems, and its extension, ISO 27701 — both of which Shein says are among its implementation of industry standard controls to protect customers’ data.

“We try to limit our data collection to the minimum amount of information necessary to process commercial transactions,” Shein said in a statement to CNBC. “We have built systems in accordance with leading data protection frameworks such as the International Standards Organization’s standard 27001 and 27701,” it stated.

The International Standards Organization, which maintains ISO standards, explained by email that it does not carry out any certifications, which are issued independently of ISO by the various national and international certification bodies operating around the world. “As such, the ISO Central Secretariat doesn’t have a database of these certifications,” it wrote. Certified companies have an obligation to inform customers of the name of the organization having issued the certificate, and verification of certification should be addressed to that certification organization. CNBC searched the ISO’s IAF CertSearch database to find a certificate for Shein or its parent company Zoetop, but no certificate validation was found.

Shein told CNBC that it has the relevant certifications from third-party auditors.

To allay national security concerns, Shein has set up data storage in respective markets. It stores U.S. customer data within Microsoft U.S.-based Azure cloud and AWS US-based cloud. In the EU, customer data is stored in Frankfurt, Germany. Payment data is not collected by the company in the U.S., but by American payment processing company, Worldpay, which is majority owned by public equity firm GTCR.

The data stored in China covers its industrial supplier management and digital merchant system, which facilitates the transactions from garment raw materials — ancillary materials like buttons, zippers — in moving the product in China.

Ram Ben Tzion, co-founder and CEO of Publican, a digital vetting platform for global trade, tells CNBC it is possible for Shein, and the Chinese government, to misuse supply chain and consumer data. He says the effort to raise Shein’s profile as a global logistics provider is directly related to the intensifying economic battle between the U.S. and China. “You are now seeing this new business service being offered,” said Ben Tzion.

“Pushing Shein as a logistics company is a response or retaliation to the U.S. tightening up everything outsourcing from China,” he said. “This is a way for China to regain a hold on the global supply chain,” he added, referring to the flow of trade away from China, and Chinese giants finding it difficult to raise capital in the U.S. market.

Shein’s manufacturing and supply chain infrastructure has also presented legal issues for partners and political blowback in the U.S. related to the longstanding international issue of forced labor in China. The source familiar with Shein’s operations said it is in compliance with policies from Social Accountability International, an NGO that sets strict international fair labor standards.

McNeal said there are significant concerns about Shein’s supply chains being deeply intertwined with forced labor from Xinjiang Province in potential violation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act. “Supporting a company with such links contradicts U.S. regulatory efforts and ethical standards and could increase scrutiny from the Department of Homeland Security’s, Customs and Border Patrol and the UFLPA Entities List Office,” he said. 

Shein’s planned U.S. IPO is considered “all but dead,” with several powerful political figures in the nation’s capital among those who sought to block it for reasons including its supply chain issues and use of trade loopholes (Shein is now pursuing a potential London listing instead). Shein has also been spurned by the U.S. retail industry’s largest trade group, into which it sought membership.

Shein’s cybersecurity protocols have previously come under fire. In October 2022, the New York Attorney General fined Shein, its affiliate Romwe, and parent company Zoetop for $1.9 million over its handling of a 2018 data breach in which 39 million Shein accounts and seven million Romwe accounts were stolen, including accounts for more than 800,000 New York residents. 

“Data ownership and protecting against cybersecurity threats are absolutely essential in the context of global supply chains,” said Srini Cherukuri, vice president of IT infrastructure & chief information security officer at ITS Logistics. “Conducting due diligence of data security and privacy practices of everyone in the supply chain is crucial to protecting against cybersecurity attacks, mitigating impacts, and optimizing the recovery time of business operations.”

Shein’s dominance lies in the company’s hyper-flexible supply chain, according to a recent report from supply chain intelligence firm Zero100. It found that using over 5,400 nearby factories in Guangzhou for micro-batch production, the company is able to work with rapi design-to-delivery cycles, lower production costs, and minimize inventory risk. Led by founder Chris Xu’s deep knowledge of SEO and online marketing, Shein has also developed a data-driven approach to fuel its growth.

Integrating continuous, real-time AI data across its marketplace platform, Shein enables “dynamic demand-supply matching, data-driven trendspotting, and algorithmic supplier selection, with AI outputs feeding into subsequent models for comprehensive decision-making across the value chain,” Zero100 stated.

That supply chain efficiency is being hailed as a positive, but Ben Tzion said that smaller manufacturers and social media influencers should understand that China’s effort to push Shein as a logistics company “is an attempt to distance itself from the liabilities associated with its trade practices and push it on to smaller business owners.”

Using Shein for logistics also means giving up all control of their supply chain and followers. “It is a safe assumption to say using a third-party like Shein for manufacturing and production will give Shein complete access to all company information, as well as its consumers and followers’ shopping habits,” he said.

Logistics services tied to production of items like sneakers and apparel in Asia require multiple supply chain touchpoints.

“The average touch point for a sneaker and apparel is 5.6,” said Eric Fullerton, senior director of product marketing for supply chain research firm Project44. “These shipments on average use three out of four modes of transportation [ocean, rail, truck, air].”

According to Project44′s analysis, sneakers and apparel travel an average of 42% around the world during the manufacturing process. The average distance traveled from the factory to the distribution center is 9,630 miles. That is long enough to walk back and forth across the United States nearly four times. The average shipment travels through 8.4 states in the US.

“If you are an old school retailer, you don’t want to give your sales, inventory, geographic strategy to a fast fashion competitor that could make a knockoff product,” Fullerton said. “In a supply chain crisis, would Shein prioritize the supply chain fulfillment of a competitor or would they prioritize their own?

In a retail world of razor-thin margins, more organizations see supply chain efficiency as a way to win the battle of the purse strings. “Not only would Shein be able to knock off the product, but they would also be able to identify the region where it is selling and for how much,” Fullerton said. “This supply chain data would provide Shein with the ability to see a company’s distribution strategy.”

Amassing supply chain data makes sense for Shein from both financial and strategic standpoints, according to McNeal. “Purchasing this software provides Shein with an additional revenue stream, thereby strengthening its financial position and competitive edge in the market,” he said. In addition, using Shein’s supply chain services and software, foreign companies grant it access to their data. “This access enables Shein to enhance its AI and algorithmic models, leading to more efficient operations and better market intelligence for Shein,” McNeal said.

That may ultimately place firms at odds with a growing Asian retail and logistics giant. “This makes foreign firms vulnerable to over-reliance on a competitor, potentially compromising their own ability to harness and use their data and strengthen their supply chain and logistics operations.”

Shein’s rapid rise has led Amazon to deepen its own ties within China. CNBC recently learned that Amazon plans to launch a new section on its site dedicated to low-priced fashion and lifestyle items that will allow Chinese sellers to ship directly to U.S. consumers. In December, Amazon announced a new “innovation center” in Shenzhen, a popular technology and manufacturing hub, and it also slashed the fees it charges merchants selling clothing priced below $20.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government has a close eye on companies with ties to China and where supply chains or data relationships are a national security issue, Kair said. “The scrutiny on Shein by U.S. regulators and legislators is consistent with their supply chain and data security concerns of other companies such as TikTok, DJI drones, and manufacturers of cranes operated in U.S. ports.”

A Department of Transportation spokesperson referred CNBC to the Commerce Department and the National Security Council. A Department of Commerce spokesperson wrote in an email that it is, “committed to protecting U.S. information and communications technology supply chains. We will continue to proactively identify and mitigate vulnerabilities in the U.S. ICTS supply chain and safeguard our national security.”

Millions flock to Barcelona every year to enjoy a sweet taste of idyllic European life. But over the weekend, thousands of locals marched through the streets and sprayed visitors with water guns in outrage over mass tourism.

Protesters were seen clapping and chanting, “Tourists go home!” and carrying signs with anti-tourist slogans, arguing that the flood of visitors has driven up living costs for residents. 

About 2,800 people participated in the protest according to the Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona, the municipal city police force, Spanish paper El País reported. But members of the protest group, the Assemblea de Barris pel Decreixement Turístic, which translates to the Neighborhood Assembly for Tourist Degrowth, say as many as 20,000 joined, the paper reported.

“The tourism and hotels is the group that really makes big money, but all the people are in a very poor situation and they don’t have enough money to live. That’s the problem,” protester Joan Navarro-Bertran said. 

Barcelona is a gem in Western Europe, home to iconic sites like La Sagrada Familia — a cathedral designed by famed architect Antoni Gaudi that’s been under construction for more than 100 years — sparkling blue beaches and famous local cuisine. 

Tourism is also a major part of the local economy. Last year, about 26 million people visited the Barcelona area spending 9.6 billion euro (10.4 billion USD) in the city, according to the Tourism Observatory of Barcelona. 

A great part of the agitation among locals is the increasing price of housing and the displacement of long term residents.

Rent in the city has risen nearly 70% over the past decade, Mayor Jaume Collboni said, The BBC reported. In June, Collboni announced a plan to stop renewing permits for rentals used by foreign visitors by 2028, a move that would make 10,000 units available to locals in four years. 

When Etsy launched almost two decades ago, the site attracted artisans and craft makers, who finally had a place online where they could sell their niche products and reach a large audience. But in recent years, Etsy has found itself overrun with mass-produced, generic items from resellers who have learned how to game the website and crowd out handcrafted products.

Now Etsy CEO Josh Silverman wants the company, whose stated mission is to “keep commerce human,” to get back to its roots.

The company on Tuesday is launching a major overhaul of the policies that govern its site to make it “crystal clear” to shoppers what products belong on Etsy, Silverman said in an interview with CNBC. The changes include new labels on its website and app to show how each seller created a particular item.

“We’re positioning ourselves to answer the call for original goods and real people by dialing up the things that make Etsy, Etsy,” Silverman said.

Etsy is rolling out a new marketing campaign around the policy changes, including a TV spot that shows ceramicists, clothing makers and other artists, followed by a smashed robotic arm. The platform’s new rules require all items to incorporate “a human touch” as outlined by its creativity standards. Each product has to fall into one of four categories: made by a seller (either by hand or using automated tools), designed by a seller, handpicked by a seller, or sourced by a seller.

With the changes, Etsy is hoping it can keep buyers and sellers returning to its site at a time when e-commerce is increasingly being dominated by Amazon and upstarts like China-linked Temu and Shein, which provide shoppers with cheap goods delivered to their doorsteps in a few days. The stakes are huge, as eMarketer estimates the global e-commerce market is projected to cross $6 trillion this year.

“I feel like there’s a race to the bottom in terms of commoditized commerce right now and almost everyone in e-commerce is playing that race,” Silverman said. “They’re selling the exact same product and they’re trying to sell it to you for 2 cents cheaper, or ship it two hours faster.”

Etsy has struggled to navigate the changing market dynamics. In its most recent quarter, gross merchandise sales, or the dollar value of items sold in its marketplace, slumped 3.7% from the prior year to $3 billion. The stock has lost more than 80% of its value since peaking in late 2021. It’s down 32% in 2024, while the Nasdaq has gained 23% over that stretch and closed at a record on Monday.

In December, Etsy laid off 11% of its workforce, with Silverman citing the “very challenging macro and competitive environment” as reasons for the cuts.

The company is also dealing with pressure from activist Elliott Management, which has amassed a roughly 13% stake in the company, making it Etsy’s largest investor. In February, Elliott partner Marc Steinberg joined Etsy’s board.

The roller coaster started earlier. Etsy went public in 2015, forcing the company to start answering to shareholders’ demands for growth, a contrast to its feel-good, socially conscious culture.

Etsy’s business exploded during the pandemic, spurred by a flood of mask buyers. The stock price quadrupled in 2020, and the number of businesses selling goods on the site more than doubled to 9 million between 2020 and 2023.

Until now, Etsy has used its “house rules” to police the site. The key policy was that “everything listed for sale on Etsy must be handmade, vintage, or a craft supply.” Resellers were prohibited.

The new rules are more specific and updated to reflect today’s realities. For example, a 3D-printed sculpture is considered “made by a seller.” It’s forbidden for a seller to add a single sticker to a commercially available face mask and pass it off as handcrafted. Regarding artificial intelligence-generated content, the policies note that “seller-prompted AI art,” such as a dog dressed in regalia, qualifies as “designed by a seller,” but a digital download of “over 5000 ChatGPT prompts” isn’t allowed.

Etsy has for years been trying to balance preserving its image as a place for unique, handcrafted goods, with an effort to bolster the selection of items to compete with its bigger rivals. For early sellers like Ashley Smith, the changes haven’t always been welcome.

Smith began selling custom wedding handkerchiefs on Etsy through her business, The Polka Dotted Bee, in 2011. Smith said Etsy was then a place where you could “search endlessly for amazing things that people were making,” and has turned into a site increasingly dominated by generic goods.

One of Etsy’s biggest changes came in 2013, when the company allowed sellers to use production partners. Rather than making products themselves, sellers could turn to contract manufacturers for help with their products.

Abby Glassenberg applauded the move. Glassenberg, who opened her handmade stuffed animal shop on Etsy in 2005, said it meant she only needed to create a pattern once and could sell “infinite copies,” cutting down on her workload. Her Etsy shop went from being a hobby business to a full-time career, she said.

However, Glassenberg understands the tension, as many Etsy consumers still want the handcrafted experience.

“Handmade doesn’t scale,” she said. “That’s why we like it, that’s why human beings like it.”

Glassenberg gave the example of a crafted fork that’s been forged and cut by human hands.

“I’m going to pay $120 for it, and use it and love it forever,” she said. “There’s no way a person could make 100,000 of them a month, and that’s why we love it.”

Competing on a bigger stage is different though, and Smith said the mainstream preference for cheap and quick goods creates “an uphill battle for sellers and for Etsy.”

Temu and Shein have grown their presence in the U.S. in recent years, luring American shoppers with deep discounts on clothing, jewelry, home goods and other products. Silverman has previously acknowledged that the sites “are taking a little bit of share from everyone.”

He’s now making it clear to sellers and customers that the company will compete on its own terms.

“The solution to that for Etsy is not to try to play that game,” Silverman said.

Employment scams surged last year, as criminals leveraged artificial intelligence to steal money and personal information from unsuspecting job seekers, experts said.

Consumer reports of job scams jumped 118% in 2023 from the prior year, according to a recent report by the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Thieves generally pose as recruiters and post fake job listings to entice applicants, then steal valuable information during the “interview” process.

Often, they put these phony listings on reputable websites like LinkedIn and other job search platforms, ITRC said, making it tough to disentangle truth from fiction.

A chief danger is divulging information about financial accounts or sensitive personal data (like a Social Security number) that criminals can then use to steal a job seeker’s identity.

Consumers reported losing $367 million to job and business opportunity scams in 2022, up 76% year over year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

The typical victim lost a “whopping” $2,000, the FTC said.

Job scams aren’t the most prevalent fraud: They accounted for only 9% of total identity scams in 2023, second to Google Voice scams, which totaled 60%, ITRC said. (Google Voice scams trick people into sharing a Google verification code, which scammers can use for nefarious ends. They often target people on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.)

However, employment scams are an “emerging” threat, said ITRC president and CEO Eva Velasquez.

“Job scams have been around since there were jobs,” Velasquez said. ”[But] they’ll continue to grow because of a number of external factors that are occurring.”

AI advancements are one of those factors: They allow scammers to generate job listings and recruitment messages that look and feel more legitimate, experts said.

“AI tools help refine the ‘pitch’ to make it more believable as well as compensate for cultural and grammar differences in language usage,” according to the ITRC report.

What’s more, the rise of remote work during the pandemic era have made workers and job seekers more comfortable with digital-only transactions, Velasquez said.

Job seekers may never see a physical person during a phony hiring or interview process: They may interact with a supposed recruiter only via text or WhatsApp message, Velasquez said, which amounts to a “big red flag.”

Recent college grads, immigrants or other people new to the U.S. workforce may think such digital-only hiring normal, especially for fully remote jobs, she said. But hiring generally doesn’t work this way, she added.

Con artists will “push you for money” during the hiring process, the FTC said.

They may send an invoice for advance payment of on-the-job equipment (like a computer ) or job training. They promise to reimburse you, but won’t, according to the federal agency.

Scammers may also ask for your personal information — like a driver’s license, Social Security number or bank account details — upfront in order to fill out “employment paperwork,” the FTC said.

“Scammers will promise you a great job, but what they really want is your money and your personal information,” New York Secretary of State Robert Rodriguez said in a consumer alert this year.

Job seekers should not expect to have to hand over personal information until after they’ve received and accepted a job offer, Velasquez said. (While this is a good screen for legitimacy, it may not provide a safety guarantee in all cases, she said.)

Ultimately, “there’s no sure-fire way to detect” job opportunity scams, according to the FTC.

Here’s what you should know and how you can better protect yourself, according to Velasquez and the FTC: 

Don’t have a false sense of security on well-known job search platforms.

Independently verify the company exists and is hiring. Don’t accept a job offer until you’ve done your own research.

Be wary if you didn’t initiate contact with a prospective employer or recruiter. Instead, reach out to the company directly using contact information you know is legit.

Only limited personal information is generally required during the application process: name, phone number, job and education history, and perhaps email and home address, Velasquez said.

Digital-only interactions are a red flag. However, phone calls are also not a guarantee of security.

Honest employers won’t send you a check to buy supplies or anything else, then ask you to send back the leftover money. This is a fake check scam.

Be wary of something that sounds too good to be true. For example, a job ad for 100% remote work that requires few skills and a huge salary “is not realistic,” Velasquez said.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs on Monday as investors await key inflation data to provide further clues about whether this year’s market rally is sustainable. Earnings from some major financial giants and consumer companies are also on the docket.

The broad market index ended the day up 0.1% at 5,572.85, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.28% to 18,403.74. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished 31 points lower, or 0.08%, at 39,344.79.

The S&P 500 is coming off its fourth positive week in the last five amid ongoing optimism that easing inflation — and any pockets of weakness in the economy — could lead to a Federal Reserve interest rate cut.

The June consumer price index, which will be released Thursday, could bolster those hopes if the headline number shows a slight improvement. Producer price index data will be released Friday.

Last week, labor data reflected a slightly cooling jobs market, spurring expectations of a rate cut. Although the U.S. economy added more jobs in June than anticipated, there was also an unexpected rise in the unemployment rate, to 4.1% from 4%. Traders are currently expecting two interest rate cuts in 2024, with the first in September, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

“We believe the fundamental backdrop remains supportive for equities, driven by solid economic and earnings growth, interest rate cuts, and rising investment in AI,” UBS strategist Vincent Heaney wrote in a Monday note.

PepsiCo and Delta Air Lines are set to post results on Thursday. Then, a slew of major banks, including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, will kick off second-quarter earnings season on Friday.