The COVID-19 crisis is expected to wipe out 6.7 per cent of working hours globally in the second quarter of 2020 – equivalent to 195 million full-time workers. Large reductions are foreseen in the Arab States (8.1 per cent, equivalent to 5 million full-time workers), Europe (7.8 per cent, or 12 million full-time workers) and Asia … Continue reading
The financial impact of the coronavirus is hitting Americans hard: thirty-three percent of voters have already lost their job, been furloughed, placed on temporary leave, or had hours reduced, with 41 percent of those who’ve lost a job already reporting having trouble covering basic costs. Black Americans are feeling the worst of the financial crisis … Continue reading
The Federal Reserve slashed the federal funds rate in response to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The full impact of the pandemic on the economy is still uncertain and depends on many factors. Analysis suggests that allowing the federal funds rate to fall fast will help the economy cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. … Continue reading
In this article, we describe how European policy makers and business leaders can think about how to prioritize both protecting lives and restoring livelihoods. Even in countries where lockdowns are unlikely to be lifted for several weeks, governments and companies need to be planning and preparing to restart their economies. We start from three observations: … Continue reading
Jean-Baptiste Say is famously misquoted for stating the Law “supply creates its own demand.” In this paper, we introduce a concept that might be accurately portrayed as “supply creates its own excess demand”. Namely, a negative supply shock can trigger a demand shortage that leads to a contraction in output and employment larger than the … Continue reading
The number of jobs destroyed by the U.S. economy’s crisis-driven sudden stop could top 4.5 million, according to the median estimate of 45 forecasters surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics. Fewer than 2 million of those positions will be recovered by the end of 2021, the economists expect, pushing the unemployment rate above … Continue reading
JPMorgan economists cut their second-quarter forecast even more, now expecting the economy will decline by 40%. The economists said the 16.8 million jobless claims filed in the last three weeks indicate a huge surge in job losses, which they estimate at 25 million in April. A number of Wall Street firms expect contractions in the … Continue reading
The concept of a recession is binary and blunt. All it says is that expectations have flipped from positive to negative growth, at least for two consecutive quarters. We think the bigger scenario question revolves around the shape of the shock — what we call “shock geometry” — and its structural legacy. What drives the … Continue reading
Employment fell by more than one million in March (-1,011,000 or -5.3%). The employment rate—or the proportion of people aged 15 and older who were employed—fell 3.3 percentage points to 58.5%, the lowest rate since April 1997. Of those who were employed in March, the number who did not work any hours during the reference week (March 15 to 21) increased by 1.3 million, while the number … Continue reading
While we wait to get a clearer picture of the health coronavirus curve in India, we already have the first estimate of the job-destruction caused by the nation-wide lockdown. The numbers are staggering, worse than anything the world has ever known. More jobs were lost in India in the last two weeks than anything ever … Continue reading
China faces its worst job market in more than two decades, with tens of millions of people temporarily without work or unemployed in the first three months of 2020 and the number of jobs set to shrink by more than 10 million this year, according to UBS Group AG economists. About 70-80 million people in … Continue reading
In a typical business cycle, as money and credit expand in the economy, a surge in inflation eventually followed, prompting the Fed to raise interest rates in an effort to cool down the economy and control inflation. This typically led to a recession. This recession, or possibly depression, is government-induced as non-essential businesses remain closed … Continue reading
Every component of aggregate demand – consumption, capital spending, exports – is in unprecedented free fall. While most self-serving commentators have been anticipating a V-shaped downturn – with output falling sharply for one quarter and then rapidly recovering the next – it should now be clear that the COVID-19 crisis is something else entirely. The … Continue reading
In my 2016 book, Failure to Adjust: How Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy, I told the story of how economic globalization caught the United States off-guard. For most of our history, we were a reasonably self-sufficient economy, with an expanding domestic market that was more than large enough to exploit economies of … Continue reading
Total nonfarm payroll employment fell by 701,000 in March, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The changes in these measures reflect the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and efforts to contain it. Employment in leisure and hospitality fell by 459,000, mainly in food services and drinking … Continue reading