adplus-dvertising
Connect with us

Economy

Pre-election economy: Unemployment falls, but hiring slows – BarrieToday

Published

 on


WASHINGTON — The final jobs report before Election Day a month from now showed hiring slowed in September even as the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.9% — a mixed result for President Donald Trump, who has staked his reelection in part on the economy.

The Labor Department said Friday that employers added just 661,000 jobs last month amid the coronavirus outbreak, down from 1.5 million in August and 1.8 million in July.

Unemployment fell from 8.4% in August, but that mainly reflected a decline in the number of people seeking work, rather than a surge in hiring. The government doesn’t count people as unemployed if they aren’t actively looking for a job.

300x250x1

“There seems to be a worrisome loss of momentum,” said Drew Matus, an economist at MetLife Investment Management. “There’s a lot of caution on the part of employers.”

With September’s hiring gain, the economy has now recovered slightly more than half the 22 million jobs wiped out by the coronavirus, which has killed over 200,000 Americans and infected more than 7 million. With many businesses and customers plagued by fear and uncertainty, some economists say it could take as long as late 2023 for the job market to fully recover.

This week, moreover, brought a new wave of layoff announcements reflecting the continuing slump in travel and tourism: Disney is cutting 28,000 jobs, Allstate will shed 3,800, and U.S. airlines said as many as 40,000 employees are losing their jobs this month as federal aid to the industry expires.

In another problematic sign in Friday’s report, the number of laid-off workers who say their jobs are gone for good rose from 3.4 million to 3.8 million.

While unemployment has tumbled from April, when it topped out at 14.7%, it is still high by historical standards. For the Trump administration, the pandemic recession has been a whiplash, with unemployment soaring from a half-century low in February of 3.5% to a 90-year peak in April of 14.7%.

The U.S. gained nearly 7 million jobs from Trump’s 2017 inauguration until the pandemic struck. Now it has 3.9 million fewer than when he took office.

Friday’s numbers offered voters a final look at the most important barometer of the economy before the Nov. 3 presidential election — an election whose outcome was thrown into deeper uncertainty by the announcement Friday that Trump has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Still-high unemployment is a potential political liability for Trump. Yet President Barack Obama was re-elected in 2012 even with unemployment at 7.8% on the eve of the election.

And even as the economy has struggled to sustain a recovery, it has remained one of the few bright spots in Trump’s otherwise weak political standing. Roughly half of voters approve of his performance on the economy.

Voters in some battleground states may feel differently. In August, the latest data available, unemployment was 10.3% in Pennsylvania and 8.7% in Michigan, both above the national rate that month. Florida was at 7.4% and Wisconsin at 6.2%, with both states below the national average.

The economy is under pressure on a number of fronts, including the expiration of federal aid programs that had fueled rehiring and sustained the economy — from a $600-a-week benefit for the unemployed to $500 billion in forgivable short-term loans to small businesses.

The September jobs report showed that women in their prime working years are quitting their jobs and leaving the workforce at much higher rates than men, a sign that many women are staying home to help their children with remote schooling.

“Women continue to bear the brunt of this recession,” said Julia Pollak, a labour economist at ZipRecruiter. “They are supervising at-home schooling.”

This is the first U.S. recession in which service-sector jobs have been hardest hit, instead of goods-producing industries like manufacturing, and women make up a greater share of the workforce in service industries like retail and health.

Many in-person service providers, such as gyms, movie theatres, and restaurants are still employing far fewer people than before the outbreak.

Charlie Cassara, who owns two gyms on New York’s Long Island, said he has brought back only one of his 20 employees since gyms were allowed to reopen at 33% capacity in late August. He said many of his clients have stayed away out of fear of the virus.

He has been unable to pay full rent and expects he will have to close one gym by the end of the year unless things change.

“Everybody is pretty much hanging on now with the hope that maybe they are going to have a chance if they can survive the winter, but the outlook is not good,” said Cassara, president of the New York Fitness Coalition, which has sued New York City to allow indoor fitness group classes.

The unemployment rate for Black workers fell sharply last month but is still much higher than it is for whites. The African-American rate dropped to 12.1% from 13% in August. For whites, unemployment declined from 7.3% to 7%. For Hispanics, the rate fell from 10.5% to 10.3%.

Overseas, unemployment rose for a fifth straight month in Europe in August and is expected to climb further amid concern that government support programs won’t be able keep many businesses hit by coronavirus restrictions afloat indefinitely.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Peoples and Alexandra Olson in New York contributed to this report.

Christopher Rugaber, The Associated Press









Let’s block ads! (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Economy

Yellen Sounds Alarm on China ‘Global Domination’ Industrial Push – Bloomberg

Published

 on


US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen slammed China’s use of subsidies to give its manufacturers in key new industries a competitive advantage, at the cost of distorting the global economy, and said she plans to press China on the issue in an upcoming visit.

“There is no country in the world that subsidizes its preferred, or priority, industries as heavily as China does,” Yellen said in an interview with MSNBC Wednesday — highlighting “massive” aid to electric-car, battery and solar producers. “China’s desire is to really have global domination of these industries.”

Adblock test (Why?)

300x250x1

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Economy

Opinion: The future economy will suffer if Canada axes the carbon tax – The Globe and Mail

Published

 on


Open this photo in gallery:

Poilievre holds a press conference regarding his “Axe the Tax” message from the roof a parking garage in St. John’s on Oct.27, 2023.Paul Daly/The Canadian Press

Kevin Yin is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail and an economics doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley.

The carbon tax is the single most effective climate policy that Canada has. But the tax is also an important industrial strategy, one that bets correctly on the growing need for greener energy globally and the fact that upstart Canadian companies must rise to meet these needs.

That is why it is such a shame our leaders are sacrificing it for political gains.

300x250x1

The fact that carbon taxes address a key market failure in the energy industry – polluters are not incentivized to consider the broader societal costs of their pollution – is so well understood by economists that an undergraduate could explain its merits. Experts agree on the effectiveness of the policy for reducing emissions almost as much as they agree on climate change itself.

It is not just that pollution is bad for us. That a patchwork of policies supporting clean industries is proliferating across the United States, China and the European Union means that Canada needs its own hospitable ecosystem for clean-energy companies to set up shop and eventually compete abroad. The earlier we nurture such industries, the more benefits our energy and adjacent sectors can reap down the line.

But with high fixed costs of entry and non-negligible technological hurdles, domestic clean energy is still at a significant disadvantage relative to fossil fuels.

A nuclear energy company considering a reactor project in Canada, for example, must contend with the fact that the upfront investments are enormous, and they may not pay off for years, while incumbent oil and gas firms benefit from low fixed costs, faster economies of scale and established technology.

The carbon tax cannot address these problems on its own, but it does help level the playing field by encouraging demand and capital to flow toward where we need it most. Comparable policies like green subsidies are also useful, but second-best; they weaken the government’s balance sheet and in certain cases can even make emissions worse.

Unfortunately, these arguments hold little sway for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, who called for a vote of no-confidence on the dubious basis that the carbon tax is driving the cost-of-living crisis. Nor is it of much consequence to provincial leaders, who have fought the federal government hard on implementing the tax.

Not only is this attack a misleading characterization of the tax’s impact, it is also a deeply political gambit. Most expected the vote to fail. Yet by centering the next election on the carbon tax debate, Mr. Poilievre is hedging against the possibility of a new Liberal candidate, one who lacks the Trudeau baggage but still holds the line on the tax.

With the reality of inflation, a housing crisis and a general atmosphere of Trudeau-exhaustion, Mr. Poilievre has plenty of ammunition for an election campaign that does not leave our climate and our clean industries at risk. The temptation to do what is popular is ever-present in politics. Leadership is knowing when not to.

Nor are the Liberals innocent on this front. The Trudeau government deserves credit for pushing the tax through in the first place, and for structuring it as revenue-neutral. But the government’s attempt to woo Atlantic voters with the heating oil exemption has eroded its credibility and opened a vulnerable flank for Conservative attacks.

Thus, Canadian businesses are faced with the possibility of a Conservative government which has promised to eliminate the tax altogether. This kind of uncertainty is a treacherous environment for nascent companies and existing companies on the precipice of investing billions of dollars in clean tech and processes, under the expectation that demand for their fossil fuel counterparts are being kept at bay.

The tax alone is not enough; the government and opposition need to show the private sector that it can be consistent about this new policy regime long enough for these green investments to pay off. Otherwise, innovation in these much-needed technologies will remain stagnant in Canada, and markets for clean energy will be dominated by our more forward-thinking competitors.

A carbon tax is not a panacea for our climate woes, but it is central to any attempt to protect a rapidly warming planet and to develop the right businesses for that future. We can only hope that the next generation of Canadian leaders will have a little more vision.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Economy

Business leaders say housing biggest risk to economy: KPMG survey – BNN Bloomberg

Published

 on


Business leaders see the housing crisis as the biggest risk to the economy, a new survey from KPMG Canada shows.

It found 94 per cent of respondents agreed that high housing costs and a lack of supply are the top risk, and that housing should be a main focus in the upcoming federal budget. The survey questioned 534 businesses.

Housing issues are forcing businesses to boost pay to better attract talent and budget for higher labour costs, agreed 87 per cent of respondents. 

300x250x1

“What we’re seeing in the survey is that the businesses are needing to pay more to enable their workers to absorb these higher costs of living,” said Caroline Charest, an economist and Montreal-based partner at KPMG.

The need to pay more not only directly affects business finances, but is also making it harder to tamp down the inflation that is keeping interest rates high, said Charest.

High housing costs and interest rates are straining households that are already struggling under high debt, she said.

“It leaves household balance sheets more vulnerable, in particular, in a period of economic slowdown. So it creates areas of vulnerability in the economy.”

Higher housing costs are themselves a big contributor to inflation, also making it harder to get the measure down to allow for lower rates ahead, she said. 

Businesses have been raising the alarm for some time. 

A report out last year from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce also emphasized how much the housing crisis is affecting how well businesses can attract talent. 

Almost 90 per cent of businesses want to see more public-private collaboration to help solve the crisis, the KPMG survey found.

“How can we work bringing all stakeholders, that being governments, not-for-profit organizations and the community and the private sector together, to find solutions to develop new models to deliver housing,” said Charest.

“That came out pretty strong from our survey of businesses.”

The federal government has been working to roll out more funding supports for other levels of government, and introduced measures like a GST rebate for rental housing construction, but it only has limited direct control on the file. 

Part of the federal funding has been to link funding to measures provinces and municipalities adopt that could help boost supply. 

The vast majority of respondents to the KPMG survey supported tax measures to make housing payments more affordable, such as making mortgage interest tax deductible, but also want to maintain the capital gains tax exemption for a primary residence.

The survey of companies was conducted in February using Sago’s Methodify online research platform. Respondents were business owners or executive-level decision makers.

About a third of the leaders are at companies with revenue over $500 million, about half have revenue between $100 million and $500 million, with the rest below. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 27, 2024.

Adblock test (Why?)

728x90x4

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending