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U.S. MEDIA WILL LOG RECORD LAYOFFS THIS YEAR. U.S. media outlets have cut an estimated 28,637 jobs through late October, according to data compiled by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas and cited by The Hill. The number is just shy of the record 28,803 workers lopped from media companies in all of 2008. In...

In its weekly report of new and existing jobless claims, the U.S. Labor Department has made “flawed estimates of the number of individuals receiving benefits each week throughout the pandemic,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report. The inaccurate data fails to reflect the true extent of joblessness and has led to...

In New York State, 27.8 percent of small businesses have been closed since the economic shutdown began; in New Jersey, the percentage is 31.2 percent, according to figures compiled on 16 November by Harvard University’s TrackTheRecovery.org, a database tracking damage wrought by the pandemic and economic shutdown.  The New Jersey number exceeds an estimate from...

Store traffic on Black Friday plunged 52.1 percent below 2019’s number, while online sales rose 21.6 percent above last year’s dollar volume, according to data firm Sensormatic Solutions. During the six weeks of the holiday shopping season, visits to stores will be 22 to 25 percent fewer than in 2019, the company predicts.  “We knew...

Shoppers flocked to malls on the weekend of 21 and 22 November, telling journalists they wanted to buy holiday gifts ahead of the anticipated Black Friday mobs or before stores were once again shut down amid the surging pandemic. The shoppers may have been prescient: on 16 November, New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered...

Construction jobs remain below pre-pandemic levels in 37 states, even though 36 states added building jobs in October, the Associated General Contractors of America reported in a 20 November press announcement. Twelve states lost construction jobs from September through October. Maryland lost the most at 2,600 and Georgia placed second, shedding 1,800.  California added the...

Pending home sales in October dipped 1.1 percent below September’s level but still were 20 percent above October 2019’s volume. The year-on-year leap shows continued strong demand among buyers, but slackening pending sales reflects both the lack of enough homes up for sale and steep price increases that increasingly shape today’s market, analysts say. “We...

Laboring under a gaggle of new state and local restrictions, restaurant owners from burger joints to five-star favorites are warning that the new strictures could send thousands more eateries into oblivion and add to the 2.1 million jobs the industry already has lost. California, Illinois, and Washington have again ended indoor dining. Maryland and Wyoming...

With seven in ten Americans not expecting to travel over the holiday season, 71 percent of hotel owners will not survive another six months without government aid and 77 percent will lay off more workers, hoteliers said in a November survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association of 1,200 of its members. Forty-seven percent...

COVID vaccines’ global availability next year is likely to stabilize the world’s economy and send investors in search of riskier bets that would bring a bigger return than the U.S. dollar, currency analysts are forecasting. In that scenario, investors will lose interest in the dollar’s safe shelter and the buck’s value will shrink as demand...