Turkey’s lira has lost almost half its value against the dollar this year and inflation continues its relentless climb, thanks to the economic policies forced on the nation’s central bank by strongman president Recep Erdogan. High interest rates fuel inflation and low rates reduce it, Erdogan believes, contrary to economic theory and decades of experience....
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JAPAN’S ECONOMY SHRINKS
From 1 July through 30 September, Japan’s economy contracted 3.6 percent, the government reported, more than the 3 percent the government had estimated earlier and more sharply than analysts’ 3.2-percent forecast. A rise in COVID cases and subsequent drop in consumer spending caused the pucker, the Financial Times reported. It was during that quarter that...
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ECB OFFICIAL: BANK’S BOND-BUYING HAVING NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS
The European Central Bank’s (ECB) program of buying bonds since 2015 to prop up the Eurozone’s economy is beginning to show more negative effects than positive ones, Isabel Schnabel, in charge of ECB’s market operations, said last week at the European Systemic Risk Board’s annual conference. Buying bonds has been “an important tool” during periods...
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TYSON FOODS TO AUTOMATE MEAT PROCESSING LINES
Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, the second-largest U.S. poultry processor with 122,000 employees, will spend $1.3 billion through 2024 to automate labor-intensive tasks, including deboning, on its processing lines, The Wall Street Journal said. The move ultimately will bring the company $450 million annually in benefits, including reduced labor costs and higher productivity, CEO Donnie King said...
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MEAT PRODUCERS’ PROFITS. THE MONOPOLY
Four of the biggest U.S. meat processing companies have used their market power to underpay farmers, push up meat prices, and triple their net operating margins during the COVID crisis, White House economic advisors allege. They claimed that higher labor and transport costs have driven price increases. However, after analyzing the companies’ financial statements, such...
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ONE IN SIX AMERICANS HAVE BEEN GIGGED
Roughly 16 percent of Americans—about one in six—have given rides, delivered groceries, walked dogs, or done other gig jobs for money, a new survey of 10,348 adults by the Pew Research Center has found. The proportion rises for younger, poorer, and non-white adults, the data shows. Among other findings: 30 percent of people ages 18...
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EMPTY URBAN STOREFRONTS ARE NEW WAREHOUSES FOR ONLINE SELLERS
Urban storefronts left dark by the COVID-era shutdown are being taken over by online grocery retailers in their quest to deliver customers’ orders the same day or, in some cases, within an hour. Start-ups including Getir, Gopuff, Gorillas, Jokr, and now Doordash, are claiming the empty stores and turning them into mini-warehouses, closed to the...
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THE HOTEL HOBBLE
About 74 percent of U.S. hotels are dealing with shortages of key supplies and paying more for those they can find, reducing their margins, according to a report by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). Eighty-six percent of lodging establishments the AHLA surveyed reported supply-line disruptions are posing moderate to significant problems for their...
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WAGES TO RISE IN 2022, BUT NOT ENOUGH TO BEAT INFLATION
Driven by labor shortages and inflation running at a 30-year high, U.S. wages will rise 3.9 percent in 2022, the biggest one-year jump since 2008’s Great Recession, the Conference Board (CB) predicted in its annual Salary Increase Budget Survey. Last April, the board had forecast a 0.9-percent bump next year. Already, hourly pay rates have...
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UNBALANCED JOB MARKET: GET USED TO IT
American workers continue to quit their jobs in record numbers, one factor in a labor market in which the number of job openings continues to dwarf the number of workers available. The Wall Street Journal reports, on 9 December, that both the U.S. Labor Dept. and the job search site ZipRecruiter put the number of...