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...
Category: TRENDS ON THE U.S. ECONOMIC FRONT
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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...
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LOW JOBLESS CLAIMS, LESS WORKERS: THE GREAT RESIGNATION
In the week ending 4 December, 184,000 new claims for state unemployment benefits were filed, the fewest since 1969, the U.S. labor department reported, well below economists’ estimates averaging 220,000 in a Bloomberg survey. The four-week moving average of new claims fell to 218,750, the lowest since March 2020. At the same time, hiring was...
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MARKET BUST COMING? CORPORATE CHIEFS CASHING OUT
Companies’ leaders are selling their stock at record rates, some for the first time, ahead of possible hikes in capital gains rates, other changes in tax structures, and the growing likelihood of a stock market correction, The Wall Street Journal reported. This year to date, 48 corporate leaders have each raked in at least $200...
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WILL JUNK BONDS TURN TO JUNK?
Investors began dumping high-yield or “junk” bonds in November when inflation continued strong and the U.S. Federal Reserve made clear its plan to raise interest rates next year (see “Junk Bond Slump,” 7 Dec 2021). The selloff accelerated when the Omicron virus variant appeared. During the last two weeks of November, investors took $6 billion...
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MARKET OVERVIEW
OBLIVIOUS TO ECONOMY’S WOES, S&P SETS NEW RECORD On Friday, 10 December, the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index closed its best week since 5 February, despite inflation running at a 40-year high of 6.8 percent, outpacing wage gains. Despite the ongoing COVID War that has been raging for nearly two years, and has destroyed...
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GROWTH IN HOME PRICES SLOWS IN SEPTEMBER
The average U.S. home price rose 19.5 percent during the 12 months ending 30 September, compared to a 19.8-percent jump for the year ending 31 August, according to data from the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. Sticker shock deterred some buyers, The Wall Street Journal reported. Still, the number of homes up for...
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BLACK FRIDAY GOT DARKER
For the second consecutive year, fewer shoppers opened their wallets on the four-day holiday shopping weekend following Thanksgiving. This year, about 180 million Americans made purchases in stores or online over the Black Friday weekend, compared with 186.4 million in 2020 and 189.6 in 2019, the National Retail Federation (NRF) reported. Many shoppers had made...