Business headlines that shaped 2022

After two winters of the pandemic, businesses started to look more hopefully to the future in early 2022. Supply chains could fix themselves; workers could continue to be productive while working at home and people could even start shopping, eating out and traveling. It was an optimistic forecast. We were ready to move past COVID and get on with our lives. But the year had some surprises in store.

In late February, Russia invaded Ukraine. Massive sanctions were put in place and Western firms had to decide whether to stay or leave Russia. Many left, including McDonald's, various luxury brands and even oil companies. Despite the pain imposed by the West, Russia continued to pull in billions of dollars with its oil and gas exports.

Energy prices spiked. Russia slowed deliveries to Europe, and both Nord Stream gas pipelines were put out of commission. For the first time in a generation, Europeans found out what a kilowatt of electricity was. Governments asked citizens and businesses to cut down on electricity, gas and hot water. In Germany, heavily dependent on cheap Russian gas, there was talk of deindustrialization.

In April, Elon Musk announced he was Twitter's biggest shareholder. A few weeks later he said he would buy the social media company outright — but tried to back out amid accusations and lawsuits. He closed the $44-billion (€41.9-billion) deal at the end of October. Within days around half the staff had been fired and many senior staff had left. Is this the creative destruction Musk is famous for?

As energy prices kept increasing, inflation in the US, UK and Europe hit highs not seen in decades. This had knock-on effects on food prices, transport, shipping and other goods. Central banks raised interest rates, but it wasn't enough to bring down inflation. Stocks were not doing well, and savings melted away. Grocery stores and restaurants had to keep printing new price tags and menus.

Volkswagen and Porsche decided to part ways — sort of. The sports car maker would split and stand alone on the stock market. VW and the founding family of Porsche would remain the biggest shareholders. The IPO brought in billions. Both companies said they needed the autonomy and money to invest heavily in e-technology, autonomous driving, software and battery development to remain competitive.

China's zero-COVID policy kept tens of millions of people in various lockdowns. This had a massive impact on manufacturing. At the same time, the country's property market came under more scrutiny. New home sales are down and developers have stopped work in many places. Until now the government has been able to keep a lid on things through state-owned banks. Is this the next big economic crisis?

It wasn't a bumper year for cryptocurrency. The price for bitcoin is down over 65%, and there are calls in El Salvador to drop it as an official currency. More dramatically, Terra-Luna, a stablecoin system, disintegrated in May. Then in November, FTX, a major crypto exchange, went bankrupt leaving around a million creditors. Many fear investors could be scared off, destroying the whole industry.

After Twitter announced huge layoffs, Meta — the owner of Facebook and WhatsApp — announced it was firing 11,000 people, or around 13% of its team. Earlier the company cut down on free dinners and dry-cleaning services for staff. Snap announced that it, too, was getting rid of 20% of its staff amid restructuring. Hey Alexa, is now a good time to go into the metaverse and work on a new CV?

This past year has been bleak — there's no other way to say it. The war in Ukraine goes on and other crises are far from over. However, where there is crisis there is also innovation. New science and medical technology, a faster move toward green energies, new, more community-minded social media platforms — they're all here or on their way, which gives reasons for hope and anticipation.