Economy
Strong economy colliding with omicron variant, surge in covid cases – The Washington Post
In recent days there has been a flurry of other announcements about changes.
Late Friday, the Radio City Rockettes announced they had canceled all of their remaining New York City holiday shows, citing “increasing challenges from the pandemic.” The dance company typically performs multiple shows per day in December. A number of other restaurants and theaters in New York City that rely on big December sales figures are also being forced to temporarily close. But some tourist destinations in Florida are expecting record sales.
Economists and policymakers say it may take weeks for the omicron variant’s full impact to come into view, and the situation is changing rapidly.
Major cities appeared to be the hardest hit so far. Broadway shows including “Hamilton” and “Tina,” about the life of Tina Turner, canceled performances this week because of coronavirus outbreaks and exposure. A Los Angeles theater production of “A Christmas Carol” was canceled Thursday, Friday and Saturday because of a similar outbreak. Some hospitals have canceled elective surgeries to clear space and personnel for covid-19 patients.
Restaurant reservations are declining again, according to the online reservation platform OpenTable, and a growing number of restaurants in New York City are closing because of coronavirus outbreaks among staffers and a lack of workers, according to the New York City Hospitality Alliance. College students and day cares are sending students home to combat outbreaks, but there are signs that people do not plan to stay home for long.
“I know of at least a couple dozen that are shutting down, which is horrible for these restaurants,” said Andrew Rigie, executive director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance. “The holidays are traditionally when many restaurants would earn their profit. This is another gut punch.”
As they have for much of the pandemic, the cancellations are moving through the broader hospitality industry, particularly in large cities. JPMorgan Chase canceled a major in-person health-care conference scheduled to take place in San Francisco next month, and the Cartwright Hotel at Union Square immediately suffered the consequences. Steven Viscio, the hotel’s general manager, compared the conference to the area’s “Super Bowl” in terms of the number of people it would have drawn and the amount of revenue it produces.
The 114-room hotel has roughly 25 employees. Viscio expects housekeeping shifts will stay limited now that the conference is off the book. He was also looking to hire one or two more staff members, but those plans will be delayed.
“Everyone has looked out for each other,” Viscio said. “But it’s still going to be a drain on everybody.”
Since early 2020, the coronavirus moved through the U.S. population in several phases, with covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, killing more than 800,000 people. The virus began its latest surge in recent weeks during a moment when the U.S. economy appeared to have regained its footing, with growth strong and unemployment falling.
But this fragile economy remains vulnerable to sudden shifts in consumer behavior. Some businesses are expecting a strong finish to 2021, while others could be forced to close their doors. The Florida Keys, for example, are preparing for perhaps the busiest holiday season ever, according to the local tourism council.
“The [tourism] numbers for December so far have broken records,” said Andy Newman, spokesman for the Florida Keys tourism council. “To be honest with you, thus far we haven’t seen any significant impact of omicron in terms of cancellations.”
Confirmed U.S. coronavirus infections have increased markedly in the past two weeks. More than 1,200 people die of covid-19 every day. So far, data shows that vaccinations and booster shots protect against severe illness from the variant, but health officials fear a surge in hospitalizations and deaths in areas with low vaccination rates.
Last winter, before vaccines were available, the virus moved with speed and lethality through the United States, particularly as many Americans traveled for the holidays. While millions of Americans are expected to travel in December and January, there are already signs of many people slamming on the brakes.
Lauren Randolph, 36, a recipe developer in Los Angeles, had elaborate Christmas travel plans with her husband, Dan Samiljan, 37. They would fly first to Tennessee to visit her family, then peel off to Kentucky to tour distilleries along the Bourbon Trail between Louisville and Lexington. After that, they planned another flight to Boston to visit family. Over the past few days, they have canceled the trip, getting credit for two out of three flights, canceling a car rental and the distillery tours.
“I have grandparents in their 90s, and we decided it just wasn’t worth the risk,” Randolph said. “The past couple years have made us used to going with the flow. No one was mad — our families are understanding people. Instead, we’re staying home and will see a few friends safely outside.”
For some restaurateurs, another coronavirus surge is mixed news. Ashwin Deshmukh owns a chain of six Williamsburg Pizza restaurants as well as a restaurant-bar called Short Stories in New York.
“People always want pizza, and if they’re not going out, they want it even more,” he said. But of the 18 holiday parties he had on the books for Short Stories, 10 have canceled.
“By Monday things started dropping off,” he said. “It could be a $50,000-to-$80,000 hit.”
Nik Sharma was going to have a holiday party there for his consulting firm Sharma Brands. Sharma canceled the party recently but told Deshmukh to keep the $7,500 deposit.
“On Wednesday night I was at the Knicks-Warriors game,” Sharma said, “and I was on my phone getting texts from people asking if the party was still happening. It’s just not a good look to be throwing a party with numbers rising. What if someone’s grandma ends up in the hospital because of this party?”
Consumer interest in catering (measured as viewing business pages or posting photos or reviews) was down 22 percent on Yelp the week of Dec. 6, compared with the same week in 2020. Food delivery service appears to be back on an upswing, with inquiries and reviews up 13 percent during the same period, compared with a year earlier.
It’s particularly challenging timing for the restaurant industry, which is also dealing with worker shortages and food inflation, said Sean Kennedy, executive vice president of public affairs for the National Restaurant Association. Already, 90,000 restaurants have closed permanently or long-term, with an additional 200,000 restaurants still hoping to get pandemic relief money from the federal government.
“Restaurants can only defy the laws of gravity for so long,” Kennedy said. “We are an industry with roughly 16 days of cash on hand and that operates on 3 to 5 percent profit margins. You can change your business model only so much.”
On Tuesday, Erika Polmar, executive director of the Independent Restaurant Coalition, had 903 new emails from restaurateurs in her inbox, she said, all looking for guidance: Did she think there would be additional federal assistance? Did she know a bankruptcy expert? Could she recommend a credit counselor?
“This is the month that folks are hoping for a bump in sales, and they are seeing it slip away,” she said. “A restaurateur in the Northeast called me. He usually does a lot of holiday parties for pharmaceutical companies. They know more than other people, he said, and they are canceling their holiday parties because they are panicked. Parties make up a big portion of holiday business. This is yet another moment where restaurants have to navigate a crisis — and they have nothing left.”
By many measures, the economy had made tremendous strides before the latest surge. Policymakers at the Federal Reserve project the economy will have grown 5.5 percent by the end of the year. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2 percent in November, and most of the major stock market indexes are on track to finish close to 20 percent higher for the year. Retail sales also rose for the fourth straight month in November, with the expectation that consumer spending will remain strong through the holiday season.
Still, health officials warn that the omicron variant could peak in a massive wave of infections as soon as January, putting pressure on strained health systems already grappling with cases of the delta variant. Plus, some policymakers and economists initially underestimated the risks of the delta variant when it began spreading over the summer, only to backtrack as the wave hindered the economic recovery for months. Consumer confidence also plunged in the late summer as people’s renewed fears of the virus held them back from seeking out jobs or limited school openings and child-care options.
At a news conference Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said the delta variant slowed hiring and constrained global supply chains. But he added that “wave upon wave, people are learning to live with this.” The more people who get vaccinated, the fewer the economic effects subsequent waves of the virus can have, Powell said.
“I just think at this point, we don’t know much,” Powell said Wednesday. “We’ll know a whole lot more in three weeks, and we’ll know more than that in six weeks.”
German politicians and business leaders, despairing a weak economy, are lately broaching a once taboo topic: claiming their compatriots don’t work enough. They may have a point.
German Finance Minister Christian Lindner fired the latest salvo in this fractious debate last week when he said that “in Italy, France and elsewhere they work a lot more than we do.” Economy Minister Robert Habeck, a Green Party representative, grumbled in March about workers striking, something a country beset by labor shortages “cannot afford.” (Later that month train drivers secured a 35-hour workweek instead of 38, for the same pay.) Signaling his opposition to a four-day work week, Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing in January urged Germans “to work more and work harder.”
Canada stands to bear a greater economic burden than the United States if Donald Trump wins the upcoming presidential election and imposes promised tax cuts and tariffs on all U.S. imports, a new report warns.
The analysis released Tuesday by Scotiabank Economics says if Trump returns to the White House and follows through on his vow to slap a 10-per cent tariff on all imported goods — with the exception of China, which would face a 60-per cent carve-out on its U.S. exports — and countries retaliate with their own, there would be “substantial negative impacts” on the U.S. economy. GDP would likely fall by more than two per cent by 2027 relative to current forecasts, while inflation would rise 1.5 per cent, leading to a two per cent interest rate hike.
In Canada, the economic impact would be even more stark with an expected GDP drop of 3.6 per cent, given its reliance on trade with the U.S. Inflation and interest rates would also be pushed up for the next two years — 1.7 per cent and 190 basis points, respectively — the report suggests.
“What Trump is looking to do is much broader, and much more concerning, than the tariffs he imposed during his first term,” said Scotiabank’s chief economist Jean-François Perrault, who authored the report.
The report also serves as another reminder that Canada needs to urgently address its issues with lagging productivity, warning the problem makes Canada more vulnerable to economic shocks brought by trade policy changes in the U.S. and abroad.
Perrault says it’s far too late to fix the problem in time for the U.S. election in November.
“It takes a long time to change direction on productivity,” he said in an interview. “Maybe you can make up some ground over the next few quarters, but we need massive amounts of progress to get to where we need to be (to withstand U.S. economic shocks).”
Trump’s policies seen as more likely than Biden’s
Although the analysis examined the impact of policies proposed by both Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden, it focuses more on the fallout from Trump’s promises.
That’s because they’re not only more potentially harmful, Perrault said, but also because they’re more likely to be implemented than Biden’s vow to raise the corporate tax rate.
“There’s really no appetite in the U.S. right now for any kind of tax hike,” Perrault said.
Implementing a change to the corporate tax rate would require Biden’s Democrat party to control both chambers of Congress — a scenario seen as highly unlikely, given recent polling. Trump’s proposals, meanwhile, are seen as more likely to be implemented quickly and without congressional approval, particularly his expanded tariffs.
During his presidency, Trump imposed tariffs on about US$50 billion worth of Chinese goods imported to the U.S., later expanding to another US$300 billion, sparking a trade war with China. Many of those tariffs have remained in place under the Biden administration.
Trump also slapped tariffs up to 25 per cent on imported washing machines, solar panels, steel and aluminum in 2018. Canada and Mexico were later exempted from the steel and aluminum tariffs in 2019, although the Canadian aluminum tariff was briefly reintroduced in 2020.
U.S. government data shows those tariffs — none of which were legislated or approved by Congress — have cost American manufacturers more than US$230 billion as of March 2024 and have shrunk the U.S. economy by 0.3 per cent.
Trump has repeatedly claimed tariffs serve to punish unfair trade practices from other countries, despite agreement among economists that they raise prices for American consumers, and says he wants to expand them to 10 per cent on all imported goods from every country if he wins in November. He has also said he will seek a 100 per cent tariff on imported cars, and carve out a 60 per cent tariff for Chinese imports specifically.
The most likely scenario — a continuation of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts beyond their 2025 expiration combined with across-the-board tariffs — would see Canada’s GDP stay three per cent lower long-term, and just over one-per cent lower in the U.S.
The Scotiabank report says the economic harm from the tariffs can be reduced on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border if Canada and Mexico negotiate an exemption with the U.S. under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during the Trump administration.
Scotiabank predicts in that scenario, Canada’s GDP would only fall by 1.4 per cent in the short term — half the drop forecast without an exemption — and 0.3 per cent in the long term, while U.S. GDP would fall 1.7 per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively.
Perrault says he’s “hopeful” such a carve-out could be negotiated, even though Trump would likely insist on further concessions that benefit U.S. trade. That “bigger stick” approach could be somewhat limited compared to the contentious CUSMA negotiations, however.
“Trump owns CUSMA, so he wouldn’t be in as much of a position to throw it away,” he said. “So maybe we get a little bit of a break.”
The report also examines the impact of Trump’s repeated vow to mass deport roughly 10 million undocumented immigrants living illegally in the U.S., which Perrault admits would be “politically and logistically infeasible.” It would also be economically harmful, the analysis found, permanently reducing both U.S. employment and GDP by three per cent, though the impact on Canada would be negligible.
The analysis says Canada and the U.S. could see additional economic impacts due to a number of scenarios it didn’t explore, including China retaliating to tariffs by unloading its U.S. Treasury holdings; further debt ceiling and budgetary crises in the U.S.; Trump’s appeasement of aggressive foreign adversaries like Russia and China; and domestic civil disorder regardless of who wins the U.S. elections.
Perrault said the findings also underscore the key difference between Trump and Biden as Canadian trade partners.
“Biden seems to view negotiations from a collaborative approach: how can everyone come away with a win?” he said. “Trump doesn’t see it that way. He’s very much in the mindset of, ‘How will this benefit me?’”
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More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.
Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.
As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted “start-up nation” is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors.
The cobbled streets of Jerusalem’s Old City are eerily quiet. There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites – at least those that remain open.
Just after Easter and Ramadan and right in the middle of Passover, all four quarters of the Old City should be teeming with visitors.
Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics. That’s down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year.
While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance.
Zak’s Jerusalem Gifts was one of only a handful of stores on Christian Quarter Street in the Old City, which is situated in occupied East Jerusalem, to have bothered opening up on the day I passed by.
“We’re only really doing online sales,” says Zak, whose business specialises in antiques and biblical coins.
“There are no actual people. The last week, after the Iran-Israel escalation, business dropped down again. So we are just hoping that after the holidays some big major miracle will happen.”
It’s not just in Jerusalem’s Old City that they need a miracle.
Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel’s volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south. A similar number of Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes on the other side of the border.
Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard.
Ofer “Poshko” Moskovitz isn’t really permitted to enter his avocado orchard in the kibbutz of Misgav Am because of its proximity to the border. But he occasionally ventures in anyway, walking wistfully among the trees, to gaze at all of his “money falling on the ground”.
“I must go to pick in the orchard because it’s very important for the next season,” Poshko says. “If I don’t pick this fruit, the next season will be a very poor one.”
He says he is losing a lot of money because he can’t pick the avocados – around 2m shekels ($530,000; £430,000) this season, he says.
Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies.
So what does the wider picture show?
Last week ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel’s long-term ratings (to A-plus from AA-minus) reflecting a loss of market confidence after increased tensions between Israel and Iran and concerns the war in Gaza could spread across the wider Middle East.
That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP – the total value of goods and services produced in the economy – which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023. Many Israelis though say the country’s renowned high-tech and start-up sector is proving to be more “war-proof” than expected.
The coastal city of Tel Aviv is only 54km from Jerusalem. More pertinently, perhaps, it’s less than 70km from Gaza.
At times, you’d be forgiven for forgetting – however momentarily – that Israel is embroiled in its longest war since independence in 1948.
Families make the most of the early summer sun to play in the surf, couples eat lunch in the many open-air beach restaurants and young people strum away on guitars on the green spaces between the coastal road and the Mediterranean.
The backdrop is a city that is economically active and physically growing fast.
“They joke that Israel’s national bird should be the crane – the mechanical kind!” says Jon Medved, founder and CEO of the online global venture investment platform Our Crowd.
An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, “in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups… We’re having one of the best years we’ve ever had. People who are engaged with Israel are not disengaging.”
Medved insists that, despite everything, Israel is still the “start-up nation” and a good option for would-be investors.
“There are 400 multinational corporations that have operations here. Not a single multinational, has closed its operation in Israel since the war.”
To an extent, Elise Brezis agrees with Mr Medved’s assessment.
The economics professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter’s GDP figures, Israel’s economy remains “remarkably resilient”.
“When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports. But we had also reduction in imports,” says Brezis. “So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay. That’s what is so problematic is that from the data, you don’t really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel.”
But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn’t reflected in economic data.
“Israel’s economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now. It’s like looking at a person and saying, ‘Wow, his salary is high,’ […] but in fact he’s depressed. And he’s thinking, ‘What will I do with my life?’ – That’s exactly Israel today.”
If the outlook in Israel is mixed, then across the separation barrier that divides Jerusalem and Bethlehem the view from the Palestinian side is overwhelmingly bleak.
Tourism is especially important to the economies of towns like Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
While some people are still heading to Jerusalem’s sites, in the place where Christians believe Jesus was born tourism “stopped immediately” after 7 October last year, says Dr Samir Hazboun, chairman of Bethlehem’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
That’s when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war.
There’s huge dependence and reliance on Israel’s economy here – but Israel virtually closed off the landlocked West Bank after 7 October and this has had a disastrous impact on the life and work of many Palestinians, Dr Hazboun says.
“The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed,” he says. “There are around 43 gates [in the Israeli security barrier] but only three are open. So with between 16,000 and 20,000 Palestinian workers from our area working in Israel, immediately, they lost their income.”
The chamber of commerce says that the revenues from local Palestinians working in Israel amounted to 22bn shekels ($5.8bn) annually.
“You can imagine the impact on the economy,” says Dr Hazboun, who is particularly concerned for the prospects for younger Palestinians the longer the war continues and more the Israeli and West Bank economies decouple.
“The younger generation now are jobless, they are not working. Many of them are talented people,” he laments.
“In June I’m expecting around 30,000 new graduates from the Palestinian universities. What they will do?
In Gaza itself the economy has been completely destroyed by six months of war. Israel’s relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have killed 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal.
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