U.S. - April Employment Plummets
- April nonfarm payrolls confirmed what we already knew—the labor market is collapsing. By the survey week of April 12, net employment had fallen by 20,500,000 jobs.
- The unemployment rate jumped 10.3 percentage points to 14.7%, the highest since World War II, but the BLS suggested the true rate was near 20%.
- The employment-to-population ratio dropped 8.7 percentage points to 51.3%, the lowest on record.
- The May nonfarm payrolls report will be awful as well. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, have continued to pour in, reaching a cumulative 33 million.
Global - Global Economic Downturn Intensifies
- The past week saw further evidence of a more widespread and faster downturn across the global economy.
- Canadian March employment and Eurozone March retail sales both fell sharply. In addition, a much larger fall in the April global services PMI (to 24.0) than in the manufacturing PMI (to 39.8) suggests the negative effects from COVID-19 are most noticeable in the service sector.
- The Bank of England held policy steady, but said a large decline in U.K. GDP was likely in H1-2020, suggesting a growing risk of further quantitative easing before too long.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 03 September 2021
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Sep 10, 2021
e move into the Labor Day weekend celebrating the 235K jobs added in August, while simultaneously lamenting that it was about half a million jobs short of expectations.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 06 August 2021
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Aug 16, 2021
Back to the economy, issues with supply constraints remains a broken-record reference, but data this week highlighted the economy\'s resilience in spite of those continuing problems.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 14 October 2022
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Oct 18, 2022
Highly anticipated Consumer Price Index report surprised to the upside. Headline CPI rose 0.4% in September, and core CPI increased 0.6%.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 17 February 2023
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Feb 20, 2023
Inflation in the U.K. receded for the third straight month in January, with the headline rate coming in at 10.1% year-over-year. In bad news, this is still five times the Bank of England\'s 2% target.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 21 January 2022
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Jan 24, 2022
The Texans have earned a top draft position yet again, the Cowboys are home again for the remainder of the playoffs, and inflation concerns that continue to mount, along with ongoing supply chain disruptions, are weighing on homebuilder confidence.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 20 May 2022
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / May 29, 2022
U.S. retail sales topped expectations in April, while industrial production also grew more rapidly than economists expected. Data on housing starts, home sales and homebuilder sentiment, however, showed tentative signs of cooling.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 20 March 2020
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Mar 21, 2020
Daily life came to a screeching halt this week as governments, businesses and consumers took drastic steps to halt the COVID-19 pandemic.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 12 August 2022
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Aug 13, 2022
The FOMC has made it clear that it needs to see inflation slowing on a sustained basis before pivoting from its current stance. The data seems to be going in multiple directions all at once.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 03 April 2020
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Apr 04, 2020
Efforts to contain the virus are leading to millions of job losses and it’s likely only a matter of time before a majority of economic data reveal unprecedented declines.
This Week's State Of The Economy - What Is Ahead? - 20 August 2021
Wells Fargo Economics & Financial Report / Aug 24, 2021
The Wells Fargo Economics team notes in the Commentary that new COVID cases in New Zealand disrupted the Reserve Bank of New Zealand\'s plan to tighten monetary policy this week.
