Maybe it’s his job to prepare us for the worst, but Canada’s chief central banker, Tiff Macklem, has warned of a long, slow recovery as successive rounds of COVID-19 lead to a “scarring” of the domestic and world economy.
After what some see as a false dawn this summer as the economy resurged, Macklem, governor of the Bank of Canada, and his senior deputy, Carolyn Wilkins, offered a gloomy outlook for an economy that they say is unlikely to get back on track until 2023.
Not only that, but jobs — hit harder in this recession than the last one — are disproportionately affecting Canadians with the lowest wages. While 425,000 jobs disappeared following the 2008 credit crisis, this time around, employment has been cut by 700,000.
And Macklem said some of those jobs may never come back.
“We’re going to get through this, but it’s going to be a long slog,” he said at a virtual meeting with financial reporters on Wednesday.
Good news? Lower for longer
The good news, if you could call it that, was that the central bankers have committed to keeping interest rates at current extraordinarily low levels until inflation climbs back to between two and three per cent, which they don’t foresee as likely for three years.
Forecasting the economy is always something of a guessing game, but Macklem and Wilkins said that this time there was added uncertainty because of not knowing what the novel coronavirus is going to do next.
The central bankers made it very clear that the current outlook depends on a number of assumptions about the path of the pandemic that may turn out to be better or worse than they currently foresee.
Among those assumptions is that the virus will return in succeeding waves, each less damaging than the last. Another is that a vaccine will not become widely available until 2022, a sobering estimate from sober central bankers that may be disheartening for those who had hoped U.S. President Donald Trump’s optimistic outlook of an October vaccine launch was more than just electioneering.
By promising that interest rates will stay low until 2023 — something central bankers call “forward guidance” — Macklem said he hopes businesses and consumers can confidently borrow for the medium term without fear that interest rates, and therefore loan repayments, will suddenly shoot up.
That’s good if you are buying a new stove but not for a home, or for a longer-term business investment. To influence those longer-term rates, the central bank has shifted the way it buys bonds as part of its quantitative easing plan that it initiated for the first time following the COVID-19 market disruption.
When the market crisis hit in early spring, the bank bought short-term bonds to help increase the amount of money in circulation, reassuring investors, Macklem said. But now that markets are working more normally, the Bank of Canada has reduced its monthly bond purchases from $5 billion to $4 billion and is switching to buying bonds that don’t mature for up to 30 years, in theory making longer-term loans cheaper.
Economy scarred by COVID-19
But while making borrowing cheap will help, the central bank worries that it won’t be enough to prevent the economy from being scarred by large employment losses as some people’s jobs never come back.
“We’ve assumed that a fraction of these people are permanent,” Wilkins said. “That’s because with COVID, not only is the recovery going to take longer so that there is more chance there’ll be scarring, it’s also the types of jobs created.”
As the economy rebounds, she said, the new jobs available will not match the skills of those who became unemployed. Among those worst hit will be women and young people.
“The effects of this pandemic have been extremely uneven,” Macklem said, directing reporters to a “particularly stunning” chart in the Monetary Policy Report, reproduced below, showing low-income workers have suffered more and their jobs have uniquely failed to recover.
Just as we saw during the long climb out of the last recession, replacing those jobs will require new private investment, some of it in entirely new sectors. But with so much uncertainty — and so much permanent structural change — Macklem said many companies will be hesitant to invest until things begin to stabilize.
“Clearly we are seeing a resurgence of the virus — it’s happening in Canada and it’s happening elsewhere,” he said.
Macklem’s current economic outlook is only a best guess based on so many unknowns. It may be that the virus gets even worse, he said, and it may be that a vaccine does not arrive until later than the bank has estimated or that it is ineffective.
But while the central bank is compelled to consider the bleakest case in its economic planning, Macklem does not exclude the possibility of a far less gloomy outcome, which he said would be “wonderful.”
“There’s certainly scenarios where a vaccine is available early next year and it proves effective, and we can deploy it at scale so that by the end of the year, we don’t need to physically distance anymore.”
And from a central banker, that is a positive ray of sunshine.
(Bloomberg) — The head of the International Monetary Fund warned the US that the global economy is closely watching interest rates and industrial policies given the potential spillovers from the world’s biggest economy and reserve currency.
“All eyes are on the US,” Kristalina Georgieva said in an interview on Bloomberg’s Surveillance on Thursday.
The two biggest issues, she said, are “what is going to happen with inflation and interest rates” and “how is the US going to navigate this world of more intrusive government policies.”
The sustained strength of the US dollar is “concerning” for other currencies, particularly the lack of clarity on how long that may last.
“That’s what I hear from countries,” said the leader of the fund, which has about 190 members. “How long will the Fed be stuck with higher interest rates?”
Georgieva was speaking on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank’s spring meetings in Washington, where policymakers have been debating the impacts of Washington and Beijing’s policies and their geopolitical rivalry.
Read More: A Resilient Global Economy Masks Growing Debt and Inequality
Georgieva said the IMF is optimistic that the conditions will be right for the Federal Reserve to start cutting rates this year.
“The Fed is not yet prepared, and rightly so, to cut,” she said. “How fast? I don’t think we should gear up for a rapid decline in interest rates.”
The IMF chief also repeated her concerns about China devoting too much capital and labor toward export-oriented manufacturing, causing other countries, including the US, to retaliate with protectionist policies.
China Overcapacity
“If China builds overcapacity and pushes exports that create reciprocity of action, then we are in a world of more fragmentation not less, and that ultimately is not good for China,” Georgieva said.
“What I want to see China doing is get serious about reforms, get serious about demand and consumption,” she added.
A number of countries have recently criticized China for what they see as excessive state subsidies for manufacturers, particularly in clean energy sectors, that might flood global markets with cheap goods and threaten competing firms.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hammered at the theme during a recent trip to China, repeatedly calling on Beijing to shift its economic policy toward stimulating domestic demand.
Chinese officials have acknowledged the risk of overcapacity in some areas, but have largely portrayed the criticism as overblown and hypocritical, coming from countries that are also ramping up clean energy subsidies.
(Updates with additional Georgieva comments from eighth paragraph.)
The head of the International Monetary Fund warned the US that the global economy is closely watching interest rates and industrial policies given the potential spillovers from the world’s biggest economy and reserve currency.
Author of the article:
Bloomberg News
Jonathan Ferro and Christopher Condon
Published Apr 18, 2024 • 2 minute read
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(Bloomberg) — The head of the International Monetary Fund warned the US that the global economy is closely watching interest rates and industrial policies given the potential spillovers from the world’s biggest economy and reserve currency.
“All eyes are on the US,” Kristalina Georgieva said in an interview on Bloomberg’s Surveillance on Thursday.
Article content
The two biggest issues, she said, are “what is going to happen with inflation and interest rates” and “how is the US going to navigate this world of more intrusive government policies.”
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The sustained strength of the US dollar is “concerning” for other currencies, particularly the lack of clarity on how long that may last.
“That’s what I hear from countries,” said the leader of the fund, which has about 190 members. “How long will the Fed be stuck with higher interest rates?”
Georgieva was speaking on the sidelines of the IMF and World Bank’s spring meetings in Washington, where policymakers have been debating the impacts of Washington and Beijing’s policies and their geopolitical rivalry.
Read More: A Resilient Global Economy Masks Growing Debt and Inequality
Georgieva said the IMF is optimistic that the conditions will be right for the Federal Reserve to start cutting rates this year.
“The Fed is not yet prepared, and rightly so, to cut,” she said. “How fast? I don’t think we should gear up for a rapid decline in interest rates.”
The IMF chief also repeated her concerns about China devoting too much capital and labor toward export-oriented manufacturing, causing other countries, including the US, to retaliate with protectionist policies.
China Overcapacity
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Article content
“If China builds overcapacity and pushes exports that create reciprocity of action, then we are in a world of more fragmentation not less, and that ultimately is not good for China,” Georgieva said.
“What I want to see China doing is get serious about reforms, get serious about demand and consumption,” she added.
A number of countries have recently criticized China for what they see as excessive state subsidies for manufacturers, particularly in clean energy sectors, that might flood global markets with cheap goods and threaten competing firms.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen hammered at the theme during a recent trip to China, repeatedly calling on Beijing to shift its economic policy toward stimulating domestic demand.
Chinese officials have acknowledged the risk of overcapacity in some areas, but have largely portrayed the criticism as overblown and hypocritical, coming from countries that are also ramping up clean energy subsidies.
(Updates with additional Georgieva comments from eighth paragraph.)
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