Evelyn Reynolds

More stories

  • 175 Shares149 Views

    in Economy

    Consumer spending fell in October, according to new CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor tracking card transactions

    October retail sales, excluding autos and gas, fell by 0.08%, according to the new CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor.
    The Retail Monitor is a joint product of CNBC and the National Retail Federation based on 9 billion annual credit and debit card transactions collected and anonymized by Affinity Solutions.
    The October data, accounting for more than $500 billion in sales, showed weakness in gas station sales, electronics and appliances and furniture and home stores.

    A customer shops at a Costco store in San Francisco on Oct. 2, 2023.
    Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

    The consumer took a spending break ahead of the holiday season, with October retail sales, excluding autos and gas, falling by 0.08%, and core retail, which also removes restaurants, declining by 0.03%, according to the new CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor.
    The new Retail Monitor, debuting Monday, is a joint product of CNBC and the National Retail Federation based on data from Affinity Solutions, a leading consumer purchase insights company. The data is sourced from more than 9 billion annual credit and debit card transactions collected and anonymized by Affinity and accounting for more than $500 billion in sales. The cards are issued by more than 1,400 financial institutions.

    The data differs from the Census Bureau’s Retail Sales report as it is the result of actual consumer purchases, while the Census relies on survey data. The government data is frequently revised as additional survey data become available. The CNBC/NRF Retail monitor is not revised as it’s calculated from actual transactions during the month. It is, however, seasonally adjusted, using the same program employed by Census.

    Arrows pointing outwards

    “The CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor will modernize how retail sales are tracked and measured, and Affinity Solutions’ vast dataset of how, what and where the consumer is spending will identify how key demographics and channels are performing for the industry generally and for specific retail sectors,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay.
    “Our audience, investors and executives alike, will now be armed with dynamic insights that go beyond headline numbers to show emerging trends and critical detail,” CNBC Senior Vice President of Business News Dan Colarusso said.

    Weakness in electronics and furniture

    The October data shows a cooling of consumer spending, in line with the consensus of Wall Street forecasts. Year over year, overall retail and core retail sales are both up 2.6%.
    The October data showed weakness in gas station sales, electronics and appliances and furniture and home stores. There was strength in sporting goods and hobby stores and non-store retails, or internet sales, along with health and personal care.

    Starting modestly before the pandemic, and accelerating amid the outbreak, economists turned to real and high-frequency private sector data to gauge the economy. In some cases, it was due to the absence of government data, with some agencies unable to gather information and others finding response rates limited. In other cases, economists looked to data that was not readily available from government sources, like subway ridership data or how much consumer spending occurred “with card not present” to gauge whether Americans continued to shun shopping in person.
    While the pandemic passed, the move toward actual, high frequency and private sector data has continued to expand.
    “The Retail Monitor heralds a new era of retail intelligence, where data isn’t just a resource – it’s a roadmap to understanding and engaging with the modern consumer,” Affinity Solutions CEO and founder Jonathan Silver said. Affinity is also a leading provider of data to Wall Street.
    In coming months, the Retail Monitor will provide demographic breakdowns of spending by age, income and geography. More

  • 138 Shares179 Views

    in Economy

    Polluting Industries Say the Cost of Cleaner Air Is Too High

    As the Biden administration prepares to toughen air quality standards, health benefits are weighed against the cost of compliance.The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is about to announce new regulations governing soot — the particles that trucks, farms, factories, wildfires, power plants and dusty roads generate. By law, the agency isn’t supposed to consider the impact on polluting industries. In practice, it does — and those industries are warning of dire economic consequences.Under the Clean Air Act, every five years the E.P.A. re-examines the science around several harmful pollutants. Fine particulate matter is extremely dangerous when it percolates into human lungs, and the law has driven a vast decline in concentrations in areas like Los Angeles and the Ohio Valley.But technically there is no safe level of particulate matter, and ever-spreading wildfire smoke driven by a changing climate and decades of forest mismanagement has reversed recent progress. The Biden administration decided to short-circuit the review cycle after the E.P.A. in the Trump administration concluded that no change was needed. As the decision nears, business groups are ramping up resistance.Last month, a coalition of major industries, including mining, oil and gas, manufacturing, and timber, sent a letter to the White House chief of staff, Jeffrey D. Zients, warning that “no room would be left for new economic development” in many areas if the E.P.A. went ahead with a standard as tough as it was contemplating, endangering the manufacturing recovery that President Biden had pushed with laws funding climate action and infrastructure investment.Twenty years ago, generating electric power caused far higher soot emissions, so “there was room” to tighten air quality standards, said Chad Whiteman, vice president of environment and regulatory affairs at the Chamber of Commerce’s Global Energy Institute, in an interview. “Now we’re down to the point where the costs are extremely high,” he said, “and you start bumping into unintended consequences.”Research shows that in the first decades after the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1967, the rules lowered output and employment, as well as productivity, in pollution-intensive industries. That’s why the cost of those rules has often drawn industry protests. This time, steel and aluminum producers have voiced particularly strong objections, with one company predicting that a tighter standard would “greatly diminish the possibility” that it could restart a smelter in Kentucky that it idled in 2022 because of high energy prices.Technically, there is no safe level of particulate matter, and ever-spreading wildfire smoke driven by a changing climate and decades of forest mismanagement has reversed recent progress.Max Whittaker for The New York TimesNew factories, however, tend to have much more effective pollution control systems. That’s especially true for two advanced manufacturing industries that the Biden administration has specifically encouraged: semiconductors and solar panel manufacturing. Trade associations for those industries said by email that a lower standard for particulate matter wasn’t a significant concern.Regardless, public health advocates argue that the averted deaths, illnesses and lost productivity that air pollution caused far outweigh the cost. The E.P.A. pegs the potential benefits at as much as $55 billion by 2032 if it drops the limit to nine micrograms per cubic meter, from the current 12 micrograms. That is far more than the $500 million it estimates the proposal would cost in 2032.So how are communities weighing the potential trade-offs?On a state level, it depends to a large degree on politics: Seventeen Democratic attorneys general wrote a joint comment letter in support of stricter rules, while 17 Republican attorneys general wrote one in favor of the status quo.But it also depends on the mix of industries prevalent in a local area. Ohio offers an illuminating contrast.Take Columbus, a longstanding hub of headquarters for consumer brands that in recent years has leaned more into professional services like banking and insurance. The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, a coalition of metropolitan-area governments, called for the E.P.A. to impose the nine-microgram standard.“There may be some economic costs to major polluting industries, but there’s real health and environmental costs if we do nothing,” said Brandi Whetstone, a sustainability officer at the commission.Columbus would incur fewer costs from tighter regulation, having enjoyed strong job growth in recent years driven by white-collar industries. But local leaders also think that clean air is a competitive advantage, with the power to draw both new residents and new businesses that value it.Jim Schimmer is the director of economic development for Franklin County, which includes Columbus. He has been pushing a plan to turn an old airport the county owns into a low-emissions, power-generating transportation and logistics hub, complete with solar arrays and electrified short-haul trucks, and he thinks stronger rules on particulate matter could help.“This is such a great opportunity for us,” Mr. Schimmer said.The E.P.A. is about to announce new regulations governing soot — the particles that trucks, factories, wildfires, power plants and dusty roads generate.Mikayla Whitmore for The New York TimesThe Cleveland area is a different story, with a high concentration of steel, chemical, aviation and machinery production. Its regional planning council declined to comment on the prospect of stricter air quality rules. Chris Ronayne, the Democratic executive of Cuyahoga County, was cautious in discussing the subject, emphasizing the need for financial assistance to help companies upgrade to lower their emissions.“I think there is an attitude of ‘work with us, with carrot approaches, not just the big stick,’” Mr. Ronayne said. “Come at us, in a manufacturing town, with both incentives to help us get there as well as the regulation.”Ohio has an entity to help with that. The Ohio Air Quality Development Authority was created 50 years ago to clean up the brown clouds that came out of smokestacks, using a combination of grants and low-cost revenue bond financing to help businesses fund upgrades like solar panels and scrubbers that filter exhaust from industrial facilities like incinerators and concentrated animal feeding operations.Now, more funding than ever is available — through the Inflation Reduction Act, which set up a $27 billion “green bank” at the E.P.A. to finance clean energy projects. Christina O’Keeffe, the executive director of the Ohio agency, said she hoped that would allow her to get into direct lending as well when more companies needed her help to meet a stricter air standard. There are also billions in the offing to help heavy industries retrofit to lower their carbon emissions, which tends to help with particulate matter as well.Public health advocates argue that the E.P.A. should set its standard regardless of the assistance available to cover the cost of compliance.California, for example, has spent more than $10 billion to help factories and farmers pollute less. The state’s Central Valley is still the only area that is in “serious” violation of meeting the set standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter of particulate matter. The country’s six most polluted counties, which include the cities of Fresno and Bakersfield, have annual readings above 16 micrograms.The Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, an advocacy group, has been pushing for more aggressive enforcement for decades. The group’s executive director, Catherine Garoupa, points out that despite the persistent air problems, the federal government has not imposed strict curbs, like holding back highway funding.“One of the huge imbalances in our region is that the trend has been to cater to industry, treat them with kid gloves, give them billions of dollars in incentive money for them to continue their practices,” Dr. Garoupa said. “They’re generating wealth, but not for the people that actually live in the valley and are breathing the air.”California has spent more than $10 billion to help factories and farmers pollute less.Max Whittaker for The New York TimesThe San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, which includes four of the country’s six most polluted counties, has a different take. It filed a comment letter warning of “devastating federal sanctions,” including financial penalties, if the standard was toughened further.The chair of that air district is Vito Chiesa, a Stanislaus County commissioner who grows walnuts and almonds and used to lead the local farm bureau. His operation has to comply with any limitations on agriculture that might be imposed, like the prohibition on open-air burning of farm waste that the air district adopted after years of demands from public health advocates. He fears that further curbs without adequate support for smaller farmers would jeopardize his employees’ jobs.“I have like 15 employees out here, and I feel completely responsible for their families,” Mr. Chiesa said. “So how is it going to affect them? Our charge here on the air board is not to do death by a thousand cuts.”One point of agreement between proponents and many foes of a stronger standard: If the E.P.A. moves forward with tougher rules, it should also crack down on pollution sources, including railroads, ships and airplanes, under its sole jurisdiction. (The agency has proposed a stronger standard for heavy-duty trucks, around which a similar fight is playing out.)Rebecca Maurer is a City Council member representing a Cleveland neighborhood that has some of the area’s worst pollution. Her office frequently hears from constituents seeking help with housing that is safer for children with asthma, which occurs at alarming rates. The district encompasses an industrial cluster that includes two steel plants, an asphalt plant, a recycling depot, rail yards and assorted small factories.That’s the most visible source of emissions, but Ms. Maurer thinks her district’s many highways — and the diesel-powered trucks driving on them — offer the greatest opportunity for cleaning up the air, which requires state and federal action. And light manufacturing jobs are needed to employ the two-thirds of the county’s residents who lack college degrees, she said.“What we don’t want is another asphalt plant, and we don’t want e-commerce,” Ms. Maurer said. “We want something in between. We’re trying to thread this needle between these hugely polluting plants and low density, low-wage warehouse jobs.” More

  • 125 Shares149 Views

    in Economy

    Chile, Known for Its Wines and Piscos, Turns to Gin

    Last Hope Distillery is one of the only real cocktail bars in Puerto Natales, a horseshoe of a city that wraps around a windy inlet in Chilean Patagonia. To enter, visitors buzz, speakeasy-style, then hang up their coats and settle in at the bar. A server sets a glass down.“Hi,” the server says. “Have you ever tried gin?”The question can surprise international visitors, most of whom, familiar with the juniper-flavored spirit, have come for a hike in nearby Torres del Paine National Park. But gin is new to some Chileans, so Last Hope’s servers don’t make assumptions.The approach started out of necessity, said Kiera Shiels, who moved to Chile from Australia with her partner, Matt Oberg, and opened the bar. Guests would turn up, unsure of what to expect. “They hadn’t had gin,” Ms. Shiels said. “They’d barely had cocktails.”Last Hope, which began selling gin in 2017, was one of the first gin distillers in Chile. But in the past few years, the country’s gin industry has exploded. From Last Hope (in the south) to Gin Nativo (in the north), there are now about 100 gin brands across the country. And many are winning international recognition.Botanicals prepped for use at Gin Elemental’s distillery on the outskirts of Santiago.Tomas Munita for The New York TimesJust last year, a gin made by Gin Elemental, distilled on the outskirts of Santiago, was awarded a gold medal at the SIP awards, an international, consumer-judged spirits competition, among others. Gin Provincia, made in Chilean wine country, earned the second-highest score at the London Spirits Competition, just one of its honors. And Tepaluma Gin, in the Patagonian highlands and rainforests, won a gold at the International Wine and Spirit Competition, one of several awards.“You will see a lot more coming from Chile,” said Andrea Zavala Peña, who founded Tepaluma Gin — one of Chile’s first distilleries — with her husband, Mark Abernethy, in 2017.“Whether the world knows it or not,” she said, “we’re coming.”Camila Aguirre Aburto, a brand ambassador for Gin Provincia, prepares cocktails at a bar in Santiago.Tomas Munita for The New York Times‘The wild has a particular taste’Fifty years after a coup established a brutal 17-year dictatorship, and just four years after an eruption of mass protests, Chile continues to struggle with deep social divisions. But the country is also working hard to remake its international reputation.Long known for its wine, Chile is now an established destination for adventure travelers after it expanded its natural parks and enticed more visitors to Patagonia. Chilean gin, its makers say, can act as a bridge between these two marketing pitches, building on Chile’s reputation for producing distinctive alcohol and effectively bottling its wilderness.“We have one of the last wild areas of the world,” Ms. Zavala Peña explained. “And the wild has a particular taste.”Capped by the Atacama Desert, shod by Patagonia, and squeezed between the Andes and the Pacific, Chile has no shortage of natural diversity. The country’s gin distillers aren’t only interested in making the best London Dry, said Teresa Undurraga, the director of the Chilean Gin Association. Instead, they are also trying to make gins that taste like Chile.“This is why we are using native herbs,” said Ms. Undurraga, a founder of the distiller Destilados Quintal. “We want to spread our flavors.”A tray of botanicals used to prepare gin at Destilados Quintal, in Santiago.Tomas Munita for The New York TimesGin is an ideal base; the neutral, juniper-based alcohol takes on the flavors of added ingredients. Chile’s distillers hope that the herbs and berries they infuse can serve as a passport — an invitation to visit, taste and see. In fact, many Chilean distillers import the alcohol. It’s easier and cheaper. The add-ins, they say, are what counts.“It’s like a painting,” said Gustavo Carvallo, the co-founder of Gin Provincia, looking out at the famous Colchagua Valley, which surrounds his distillery. The corn alcohol, which he imports from the United States, serves as the canvas. “All the botanicals are the colors.”Beyond the ‘Ginaissance’Chile’s booming gin industry comes at what might be the tail-end of a global revival, sometimes called the “Ginaissance,” which began in Britain over a decade ago, partially under the influence of the American craft distilling movement.The spirit was once seen as fuddy-duddy — a relic of colonial Brits trying to dodge malaria. But international experiments have aired out its reputation. There are distillers in Spain, India, South Africa, Australia, Brazil and Vietnam, among a slew of other countries. And gin is now seen as sophisticated, even worldly. The old-world quinine chaser has been reinvigorated by its new cosmopolitan devotees.Like many alcohols, gin can “capture a sense of place,” said David T. Smith, the chair of the World Gin Awards and the author of several books about gin, including “The Gin Dictionary.” But it’s often easier — and cheaper — to make gin than it is to make many other spirits, Mr. Smith said, which is partly why the industry in Chile grew so quickly.Jorge Sepulveda, who created the recipe for Gin Elemental, at his distillery on the outskirts of Santiago.Tomas Munita for The New York TimesJorge Sepulveda, who created the recipe for Gin Elemental, which also won gold at the London Spirits Competition this year, learned the basics on YouTube in just a few hours, he said. He started in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic after being encouraged by a friend, Ariel Jeria, who works in advertising and noticed the rising interest in Chilean gin.Mr. Sepulveda was already a talented cook, he suggested. Why not give gin a try?But Mr. Sepulveda had barely tried gin before. So, in lockdown, he began experimenting in a tiny countertop still. “I studied for two days,” Mr. Sepulveda said, standing near the still in his distillery. “I said: ‘OK, I can make it.’”The first few tests, he admits, weren’t perfect. So Mr. Sepulveda reassessed, settling on a method that uses the Fibonacci sequence to determine the ratios of his ingredients.“That is the number of God,” said Mr. Sepulveda, a geophysicist, who has since made other gin recipes using a similar philosophy. “Nature is physics. So it has to work.”Gin vs. pisco, whiskey and wineChilean gin faces stiff competition with the country’s three most beloved alcohols: pisco, whiskey and wine. But the production of gin has practical advantages.The first is accessibility. Pisco comes from specific regions of Chile and Peru. (In that way, it’s a little bit like Champagne or Parmesan.) Gin doesn’t. It is an everywhere alcohol, which makes it an anywhere alcohol. Anyone can make it.“The recipe for gin is endlessly adaptable, so you can do whatever you like,” said Henry Jeffreys, a British drinks writer.The second is time. Whiskey, which is considered the most high-end alcohol by many Chileans, takes years to mature in barrels. But gin can be ready days after it’s made.Visitors to Last Hope Distillery, for example, can sip Last Hope gin cocktails while bending over oak barrels out back to sniff the first batch of Last Hope whiskey — which has years to go before it’s on the market.The third is a lack of pretension. Wine, like whiskey, demands refinement. Only a drinker with a certain training can tease out the differences in origin from a single sip. Not so for gin. The botanicals are hi-hats, neons, easy to recognize and understand. Even the most unstudied reporter, drinking a gin and tonic after a days-long Patagonian backpacking trip, can taste the different flavors — many of which come from ingredients that were grown near the distillers’ homes.Mr. Carvallo, of Provincia, harvests boldo from a shrub mere steps from the distillery. (Chileans use tea made from boldo leaves as a folk medicine to soothe a range of ailments, including stomach aches.)“This is what moves us,” he said, rubbing a leaf between his fingers. “We’re trying to show what Chile has in botanicals and in its culture.”The botanicals used to make gin at Zunda.Tomas Munita for The New York TimesUrban flavorsIn the heart of Santiago, Eduardo Labra Barriga is trying to make a gin that tastes like the city itself: “A Santiago gin,” he said. “An urban gin.” He called it Pajarillo, named for a little bird that flies everywhere in the city. And he relies heavily on lavender, rosemary, pink pepper and cedron leaves, which grow in bushes across the capital. He and his wife have set up a trade program: Neighbors exchange leaves for a cheaper refill.Elsewhere in the capital, artisanal gins are still just starting to catch on in the hottest bars. Even among the city’s social elite, many prefer to stick with the familiarity of a high-end pisco or an imported whiskey.As a result, some distilleries are hiring representatives to help promote their products.Camila Aguirre Aburto works as a brand ambassador for Gin Provincia. Before she designs a custom cocktail for a bar, Ms. Aguirre starts with a lesson; she knows that for Chilean gins to catch on, bartenders need to teach people about the gin’s terroir.First, she shares samples of dried juniper, to explain the gin’s base flavors. Then she shows off the botanicals, like boldo, that give the gin flavor. Only then does she allow her clients to taste the spirit.“Close your eyes, smell the gin,” says Ms. Aguirre, who learned English by watching the “Scream” movies and speaking to friends. “Feel the forest after the rain.”At first the invitation feels like a tease. But then, just maybe — is that a lush valley at the roof of one’s mouth? Or, maybe, in the tickle of a nostril, the winds of Patagonia? Is that Chile on the tip of a tongue?Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023. More

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    Vermont May Be the Face of a Long-Term U.S. Labor Shortage

    At Lake Champlain Chocolates, the owners take shifts stacking boxes in the warehouse. At Burlington Bagel Bakery, a sign in the window advertises wages starting at $25 an hour. Central Vermont Medical Center is training administrative employees to become nurses. Cabot Creamery is bringing workers from out of state to package its signature blocks of Cheddar cheese.The root of the staffing challenge is simple: Vermont’s population is rapidly aging. More than a fifth of Vermonters are 65 or older, and more than 35 percent are over 54, the age at which Americans typically begin to exit the work force. No state has a smaller share of its residents in their prime working years.Vermont offers an early look at where the rest of the country could be headed. The baby boom population is aging out of the work force, and subsequent generations aren’t large enough to fully replace it. Immigration slumped during the pandemic, and though it has since rebounded, it is unclear how long that will last, given a lack of broad political support for higher immigration. Birthrates are falling.“All of these things point in the direction of prolonged labor scarcity,” said David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied long-term work force trends.Eric Lampman, right, the president and co-owner of Lake Champlain Chocolates, has revamped its production schedule to reduce its reliance on seasonal help.Lockers at Lake Champlain Chocolates. While other states have helped buttress their work forces through immigration, Vermont’s foreign-born population has remained small.Vermont’s unemployment rate was 1.9 percent in September, among the lowest in the country, and the labor force is still thousands of people smaller than before the pandemic. Employers are fighting over scarce workers, offering wage increases, signing bonuses and child care subsidies, alongside enticements such as free ski passes. When those tactics fail, many are limiting operating hours and scaling back product offerings.A rural state — Burlington, with a population under 45,000, is the smallest “biggest city” in the country — Vermont has for decades seen young people leave for better opportunities. And while other states have helped buttress their work forces through immigration, Vermont’s foreign-born population has remained small.But demographics are at the root of the problem.“We knew where we were headed — we just maybe got there a little bit quicker than we were expecting,” said Michael Harrington, the state’s labor commissioner. “There just aren’t enough Vermonters to meet the needs of our state and our employers in the future.”Gray Mountain StateA disproportionate share of Vermonters are in or near their retirement years. But the overall U.S. population is also aging.

    .dw-chart-subhed {
    line-height: 1;
    margin-bottom: 6px;
    font-family: nyt-franklin;
    color: #121212;
    font-size: 15px;
    font-weight: 700;
    }

    Percentage of 2022 population by age group
    Source: Census BureauBy The New York TimesThere were similar shortages across the country in 2021 and 2022, as demand — for both goods and workers — surged after pandemic lockdowns. The overall labor market has become more balanced as demand has cooled and Americans have returned to the work force. But economists and demographers say shortages will re-emerge as the population ages.“It seems to be happening slowly enough that we’re not seeing it as a crisis,” said Diana Elliott, vice president for U.S. programs at the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research organization. “It’s happening in slow motion.”Long-run labor scarcity will look different from the acute shortages of the pandemic era. Businesses will find ways to adapt, either by paying workers more or by adapting their operations to require fewer of them. Those that can’t adapt will lose ground to those that can.“It’s just going to be a new equilibrium,” said Jacob Vigdor, an economist at the University of Washington, adding that businesses that built their operations on the availability of relatively cheap labor may struggle.“You may discover that that business model doesn’t work for you anymore,” he said. “There are going to be disruptions. There are going to be winners and losers.”Higher Wages, More OpportunityCentral Vermont Medical Center built a classroom and simulation lab for its training programs. A trainee practiced a procedure using a dummy.The winners are the workers. When workers are scarce, employers have an incentive to broaden their searches — considering people with less formal education, or those with disabilities — and to give existing employees opportunities for advancement.At Central Vermont Medical Center, as at rural hospitals across the country, the pandemic compounded an existing nursing shortage. An aging population means that demand for health care will only grow.So the medical center has teamed up with two local colleges on a program enabling hospital employees to train as nurses while working full time. The hospital built a classroom and simulation lab on site, and lent out its nurses to serve as faculty. Students spend 12 of their paid working hours each week studying — and if they stay on as nurses for three years after completing the program, their student debt is forgiven.The program has graduated 27 licensed practical nurses and eight registered nurses since 2021; some previously had administrative jobs. The hospital is expanding the training to roles like respiratory technicians and phlebotomists.Other businesses are finding their own ways to accommodate workers. Lake Champlain Chocolates, a high-end chocolate maker outside Burlington, has revamped its production schedule to reduce its reliance on seasonal help. It has also begun bringing former employees out of retirement, hiring them part time during the holiday season.The medical center has teamed up with two local colleges on a program enabling hospital employees to train as nurses while working full time.“We’ve adapted,” said Allyson Myers, the company’s marketing director. “Prepandemic we never would have said, oh, come and work in the fulfillment department one day a week or two days a week. We wouldn’t have offered that as an option.”Then there is the most straightforward way to attract workers: paying them more. Lake Champlain has raised starting wages for its factory and retail workers 20 to 35 percent over the past two years.Charles Goodhart, a British economist, said the aging of the population would tend to lead to lower inequality — albeit at the cost of higher prices.“Since the available supply of workers will go down, relative to demand, workers will demand and get higher wages,” Mr. Goodhart, who in 2020 published a book on the economic consequences of aging societies, wrote in an email.Robots and HousingCabot Creamery is in a rural area where cellphone coverage is spotty and many roads are unpaved. The county has only about 700 unemployed people, according to Vermont’s Labor Department.When Walmart reached out to Cabot Creamery about increasing distribution of its Greek yogurt, Jason Martin hesitated — he wasn’t sure he could find enough workers to meet the extra demand.Mr. Martin is senior vice president of operations for Agri-Mark, the agricultural cooperative that owns Cabot Creamery, the nationally distributed brand that employs close to 700 people in Vermont. When the company’s leadership talks about adding a product or expanding production, he said, labor is nearly always the first topic.“As I present products to our board of directors, in the back of my mind I always think, ‘I’m going to need to find the people,’” Mr. Martin said.The labor challenge is evident at Cabot Creamery’s packaging plant in the company’s namesake town. Blocks of cheese weighing close to 700 pounds are fed into machines that cut them, for one product, into cracker-size slices. Employees in gloves and hairnets then drop the slices into plastic pouches, which are sealed and packaged together. Many of the workers are in their 50s and 60s, and have been with Cabot for decades.Cabot is over an hour from Burlington, in a rural area where cellphone coverage is spotty and many roads are unpaved. The county has only about 700 unemployed people, according to the state’s Labor Department, and while the company has raised pay and offers generous benefits — a recent marketing campaign cites perks including a defined-benefit pension plan, tuition reimbursement and, of course, free cheese — hiring remains difficult.Cabot has raised pay and offers generous benefits such as pension plan, tuition reimbursement and, of course, free cheese, but hiring remains difficult.Adding to the challenge is Vermont’s housing shortage. Cabot has contracted with a local college to use unoccupied dormitories to house temporary workers brought in from other states and — on guest-worker visas — from other countries.It is also investing in automation — not just to require fewer workers but also to make jobs less taxing for its aging employee base. New equipment will package cheese slices automatically.To economists, investments like Cabot’s are good news — a sign that companies are finding ways to make the people they have more productive.But ultimately, many economists say, Vermont — and the country as a whole — will simply need more workers. Some could come from the existing population, through companies’ efforts to tap into new labor pools and through government efforts to address larger issues like the opioid crisis, which has sidelined hundreds of thousands of working-age Americans.Not all economists think aging demographics are likely to drive a national labor shortage.The ranks of people in their prime working years was stagnant for years before the pandemic, but labor was often plentiful, said Adam Ozimek, the chief economist at Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization. Increased immigration, he added, would add to demand as well as supply.Still, many economists argue that immigrants will be an important part of the solution, especially in fields, like elder care, that are rapidly growing and hard to automate.“We need to start looking at immigrants as a strategic resource, incredibly valuable parts of the economy,” said Ron Hetrick, senior labor economist at Lightcast, a labor market data firm.Workers WantedKevin Chu, the executive director of the Vermont Futures Project, sees the worker shortage as an imminent, long-term threat to the state’s economy.Kevin Chu has spent the past several months traveling around Vermont speaking to local business groups, elected officials, nonprofit organizations and pretty much anyone else who would listen. His message: Vermont needs more people.Mr. Chu is the executive director of the Vermont Futures Project, a nonprofit organization, backed by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, that sees the worker shortage as an imminent, long-term threat to the state’s economy.Mr. Chu grew up in Vermont after his parents immigrated from China in the mid-1980s, part of a wave of immigrants — many of them refugees — who came to the state during that period. He recalls attending Burlington High School at a time when it flew the flag of its students’ home countries, dozens in all.“I feel like I got a glimpse of what Vermont could be,” he said.Mr. Chu’s message has resonated with business leaders and state officials, but it has been a tougher sell with the population as a whole. A recent poll found that a plurality — but not a majority — of Vermonters supported increasing the population.The Futures Project has set a goal of increasing the population to 802,000 by 2035, from fewer than 650,000 today. That would also help bring down Vermont’s median age to 40, from 42.7.The state has a long way to go: Vermont added just 92 people from 2021 to 2022.The root of Vermont’s staffing challenge is simple: More than a quarter of its adults are 65 or older, and more than 40 percent are over 54. More

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    Las Vegas Hotel Strike Averted After Unions Strike Deals with Resorts

    Two big unions reached contract agreements with the three largest resort operators ahead of a series of events crucial to the city’s economic rebound.Debra Jefferies, a cocktail waitress at the Horseshoe Las Vegas, spent much of the week wondering whether she would be walking a picket line, as she did in 1984 — the last time there was a major strike among hospitality workers in the city.“There was solidarity back then, just like there has been right now,” said Ms. Jefferies, 68. “Each generation has stepped up to demand better working conditions.”Nearly 35,000 union members, including Ms. Jefferies, had threatened to begin a strike on Friday against the city’s three big casino operators after months of negotiations had failed to yield a new five-year labor agreement.But last-minute maneuvering averted a walkout as the resort owners — Caesars Entertainment, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts — came to terms, one by one, on tentative contracts with the city’s two most powerful unions.The final agreement, with Wynn Resorts, came early on Friday, a few hours before the strike deadline. The deal, when ratified, would provide “outstanding benefits and overall compensation to our employees,” Wynn said in a statement. The culinary union said the contract featured the largest wage increase negotiated in its 88-year history.A strike loomed as a major disruption to a series of big events, starting with the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a Formula 1 auto race along The Strip that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors late next week.It was the latest crucible for Las Vegas and for Nevada, which has the highest unemployment rate in the nation — currently 5.4 percent — and has struggled to bounce back ever since the start of the pandemic shuttered The Strip for months.Along with the Formula 1 race, Las Vegas is the site of the National Finals Rodeo in December and the Super Bowl in February.Bill Hornbuckle, the chief executive of MGM, said in a Wednesday earnings call that his company had sold more than 10,000 tickets to the Grand Prix and expected to bring in $60 million in extra hotel revenue in the days ahead.Those stakes made a labor agreement all the more crucial.Ted Pappageorge, the head of Culinary Workers Union Local 226, said, “Hospitality workers will now be able to provide for their families and thrive in Las Vegas.”Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesThe dispute pitted Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 — affiliates of the labor confederation UNITE HERE — against Caesars, MGM and Wynn, which operate 18 hotels along the The Strip and are the state’s three biggest employers. Ted Pappageorge, the head of Local 226, likened the negotiations to landing “three large planes at once.”The unions pushed for contracts that would raise wages, bolster safety practices and ease concerns about the introduction of new technology that could affect jobs.“Hospitality workers will now be able to provide for their families and thrive in Las Vegas,” Mr. Pappageorge said, adding that the MGM Resorts contract would provide compensation increases “far above” those in the last contract, which amounted to a $4.57-an-hour increase in overall in wages, health care and pensions.Details of the tentative agreements have not been released, but the terms are expected to be similar across the three companies. Under the contract that expired Sept. 15, union members make $26 an hour on average.Stephen M. Miller, an economics professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the sea change in the balance of power between management and labor that has occurred in the post-pandemic period is on clear display in Las Vegas.Mr. Miller said the government stimulus money during the pandemic gave laid-off workers, including many who worked in the culinary union in Las Vegas, the resources to reconsider their future employment path.“The labor market is involved in a large restructuring process, which has given labor more bargaining power,” Mr. Miller said. “The resurgence of strikes and threats of strikes is the observable outcome of that power shift.”“There is no better time than now to fight for what we deserve,” Yusett Salomon, a warehouse operator at Wynn Resorts, said of the negotiations on a new contract.Mikayla Whitmore for The New York TimesEven before the labor ferment in the last year in the auto industry, Hollywood and other realms, Nevada’s culinary workers were a particularly powerful force.It was culinary union members — who include housekeepers, cooks, doormen, laundry workers, bartenders and food servers — whose political clout was vital in winning legislative approval of Covid-19 safety precautions.And they often help sway elections as a powerful base for Democrats.In 2020, members knocked on more than 500,000 doors and helped Joseph R. Biden Jr. win the state by roughly two percentage points. Last year, during the 2022 midterms, they doubled their door-knocking efforts, helping Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto secure her re-election. (Despite their efforts, incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak, who faced fierce criticism over pandemic shutdowns, lost by a narrow margin.)That kind of support may be crucial to Mr. Biden again next year in a swing state where a recent New York Times/Siena College poll showed him trailing his likely Republican opponent, former President Donald J. Trump, by 10 percentage points.Yusett Salomon was among the workers who knocked on doors for Democrats during the 2022 election. He has worked as a warehouse operator transporting pallets of food and plants at the Wynn for the past two years, earning $22 an hour.On Thursday, Mr. Salomon sat inside a cavernous hotel conference room observing negotiations. “There is no better time than now to fight for what we deserve,” he said.Lynnette Curtis More

  • 75 Shares189 Views

    in Economy

    Biden Bolsters Union Support in Illinois

    The trip, including a meeting with the president of the United Automobile Workers, offered the president a chance to celebrate a landmark labor deal.President Biden pulled a red United Automobile Workers T-shirt over his button-down on Thursday and celebrated a landmark labor deal that kept a Stellantis manufacturing plant in business, using an appearance in Illinois to shore up crucial union support.“I’ve worn this shirt a lot, man,” Mr. Biden told a man in the crowd, one month after he walked a picket line to support autoworkers in their strike for higher wages. “I’ve been involved in the U.A.W. longer than you’ve been alive,” the 80-year-old president said.The speech before the boisterous crowd was a victory lap for Mr. Biden after the union reached an agreement with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis late last month on a contract that included pay increases and reopened the plant in Belvidere, Ill.Mr. Biden made the case for clean energy even as many workers fear the president’s climate change agenda could endanger their jobs. He also drew a contrast with his likely Republican opponent in the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald J. Trump.“When my predecessor was in office, six factories closed across the country. Tens of thousands of auto jobs were lost nationwide, and on top of that he was willing to cede the future of electric vehicles to China,” Mr. Biden said. He added that Mr. Trump has insisted that electric vehicles will lead to the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs.“Well, like almost everything else he said, he’s wrong,” Mr. Biden added. “And you have proved him wrong. Instead of lower wages, you won record gains. Instead of fewer jobs, you won a commitment for thousands of more jobs.”During Mr. Trump’s four years in office, the National Labor Relations Board often took pro-corporate stances and was actively hostile to unions. While Mr. Biden in September became the first president to appear on a picket line, Mr. Trump visited a nonunion plant in Michigan and said union members “were being sold down the river by their leadership.”The Biden administration has proposed the nation’s most ambitious climate regulations yet, which would ensure that two-thirds of new passenger cars are all-electric by 2032 — up from just 5.8 percent today. The rules, if enacted, could sharply lower planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle tailpipes, the nation’s largest source of greenhouse emissions.But they also come with costs for autoworkers, because it takes fewer than half the laborers to assemble an all-electric vehicle as it does to build a gasoline-powered car. Union leaders also fear that many of the new manufacturing plants for electric vehicle batteries and other parts are being built in states that are hostile to unions.On Thursday, Mr. Biden showered praise on union leaders, particularly Shawn Fain, the president of the U.A.W., saying the strike that Mr. Fain led saved the automobile industry. “You’ve done a hell of a job, pal,” Mr. Biden told him.Mr. Fain did not offer Mr. Biden the endorsement of his powerful union with about 400,000 active members, including a major presence in the swing state of Michigan. In the past, the union boss has been vocally critical of some administration decisions around its push for electric vehicles, writing in a memo to union members in May that “the E.V. transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom.” He wrote that the union wanted to see “national leadership have our back on this” before making a decision on an endorsement.“His view was: We’re two guys from working-class backgrounds,” Gene Sperling, Mr. Biden’s liaison to the U.A.W., said of the president’s view shortly before he invited Mr. Fain to the Oval Office in July. The two have spoken on the phone several times since, including once when Mr. Biden called Mr. Fain to wish him a happy birthday.Administration officials said the tenor of the relationship changed when Mr. Biden joined striking autoworkers in Michigan in September. When word came down that the union had struck a deal with the automakers, Mr. Biden stepped away during a state dinner welcoming the Australian prime minister and called Mr. Fain, a senior administration official said.David Popp, a professor of public administration at Syracuse University, noted that while new factories will be needed to build electric vehicle batteries, the vehicles will require fewer suppliers producing parts. Many assembly workers will also need to be retrained.“We may also need fewer workers,” Mr. Popp said in an email. But, he said, “there doesn’t seem to be a consensus yet on whether that is the case.”Kristine Lynn, who spent 17 years on the assembly line at the Belvidere manufacturing plant before it shuttered eight months ago, said she had “mixed emotions” about the transition to clean energy and electric vehicles.Ms. Lynn, 49, said she was unsure what job she was returning to, but knew she would face changes in the long run. Her last position involved putting gas tanks into automobiles.“That job isn’t going to exist anymore,” she said. More

  • 163 Shares169 Views

    in Economy

    Fed Chair Recalls Inflation ‘Head Fakes’ and Pledges to Do More if Needed

    Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said officials would proceed carefully. But if more policy action is needed, he pledged to take it.Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, on Thursday expressed little urgency to make another interest rate increase imminently — but he reiterated that officials would adjust policy further if doing so proved necessary to cool the economy and fully restrain inflation.Mr. Powell and his Fed colleagues left interest rates unchanged in a range of 5.25 to 5.5 percent this month, up from near zero as recently as March 2022. The Fed has raised borrowing costs over the past year and a half to wrangle rapid inflation by slowing demand across the economy.Because inflation has faded notably from its peak in the summer of 2022, and because the Fed has already adjusted policy so much, officials are debating whether they might be done. Once they think rates are at a sufficiently elevated level, they plan to leave them there for a time, essentially putting steady pressure on the economy.Mr. Powell, speaking at a research conference in Washington hosted by the International Monetary Fund, reiterated on Thursday that policymakers wanted to make sure that rates were sufficiently restrictive. He said Fed officials were “not confident that we have achieved such a stance” yet.“We’re trying to make a judgment, at this point, about whether we need to do more,” Mr. Powell said in response to a question at the event. “We don’t want to go too far, but at the same time, we know that the biggest mistake we could make would be, really, to fail to get inflation under control.”He made clear that the Fed did not want to take a continued steady slowdown in inflation for granted. While the Fed’s preferred inflation measure has cooled to 3.4 percent from above 7 percent last year, squeezing price increases back to the central bank’s 2 percent goal could still prove to be a bumpy process. Much of the added inflation that remains is coming from stubborn service prices.“We know that ongoing progress toward our 2 percent goal is not assured: Inflation has given us a few head fakes,” Mr. Powell said. “If it becomes appropriate to tighten policy further, we will not hesitate to do so.”But the Fed does not want to raise interest rates blindly. It takes time for monetary policy changes to have their full effect on the economy, so the Fed could crimp the economy more painfully than it wants to if it raises rates quickly and without trying to calibrate the moves.While central bankers want to cool the economy to bring down inflation, they would like to avoid causing a recession in the process.“We will continue to move carefully,” Mr. Powell said. He said that would allow officials “to address both the risk of being misled by a few good months of data and the risk of over-tightening.”The risk of overdoing it is why central bankers are contemplating whether they need to make another move, or whether inflation is on a steady path back to normal.As of their September economic projections, officials thought that one final rate increase might be necessary, investors doubt that they will raise rates again in the coming months. In fact, market pricing suggests that the Fed could start cutting interest rates as soon as the middle of next year.Markets are betting there is only a sliver of a chance that the Fed will adjust policy at its final meeting of 2023, which will conclude on Dec. 13, and Mr. Powell did little to signal that a rate increase is imminent.Still, his remarks pushed back on the growing conviction among investors that the central bank is decisively finished.“We still believe the Fed is done hiking for this cycle, but today’s speech should serve as notice that their rhetoric must stay hawkish until they’ve seen further improvement in inflation,” Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at J.P. Morgan, wrote in a research note.Some economists have been anticipating that a recent jump in longer-term interest rates might persuade the Fed to hold off on raising borrowing costs again. While the Fed sets shorter-term interest rates, longer-term ones are based on market movements and can take time to adjust — but when they do, mortgages, business loans and other types of borrowing become more expensive.Fed officials are watching market moves, including whether they last and what is causing them, Mr. Powell acknowledged. He said officials would watch how the moves shaped up.“We’re moving carefully now, we’ve moved very fast, and rates are now restrictive,” Mr. Powell said. “It’s not something we’re trying to make a decision on right now.”He also used his speech to discuss some longer-term issues in monetary policy, including whether interest rates, which had lingered near rock-bottom levels for much of the decade preceding the pandemic, will eventually return to a much lower setting.Some economists have speculated that borrowing costs might remain permanently higher than they were in the years after the deep 2007-9 recession. But Mr. Powell said that it was too early to know, and that Fed researchers would ponder the question as part of their next long-run policy review.“We will begin our next five-year review in the latter half of 2024 and announce the results about a year later,” Mr. Powell explained.The last review concluded in 2020 and was focused on how to set policy in a low-interest rate world, a backdrop that quickly changed with the advent of rapid inflation in 2021. More

  • 125 Shares149 Views

    in Economy

    Las Vegas Unions and MGM Resorts Reach Tentative Labor Agreement

    The deal, the second in two days with a major resort operator, was announced on the day before a strike deadline set by two major unions.Two unions representing hospitality workers announced on Thursday a tentative labor agreement with a second major Las Vegas hotel operator, MGM Resorts International, a day before a strike deadline set by the unions.Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 said a deal had been reached on a five-year contract covering 25,400 workers at MGM Resorts, which runs eight Las Vegas properties: the Aria, Bellagio, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, New York-New York and Park MGM.The unions, which are affiliates of UNITE HERE, announced on Wednesday that they had struck a deal with Caesars Entertainment, another major resort operator in the city.The unions said last week that their members would go on strike if an agreement with the city’s three main resort operators was not reached by Friday. The unions are still negotiating with Wynn Resorts.The unions have been negotiating with the resorts since April. The agreement would avert a strike at MGM’s resorts, although the unions’ members still need to ratify the new contract.Ted Pappageorge, the head of Local 226, said in a statement that with the new deal, MGM workers “will be able to provide for their families and thrive in Las Vegas.” The unions said the agreement with MGM included the largest wage increases “ever negotiated in Culinary Union’s 88-year history,” a workload reduction for some members and increased safety protections, among other benefits.“We’re pleased to have reached a tentative agreement that averts a strike, gives our culinary union employees a well-earned boost to pay and benefits and reduces workloads,” Bill Hornbuckle, the chief executive of MGM Resorts, said in a statement.It’s not yet clear how big of a pay increase union members will receive, but Mr. Hornbuckle, told analysts on an earnings call Wednesday that a deal would result in “the largest pay increase in the history of our negotiations with the culinary union.” He added that the company would harness “technology and process improvements to help offset the incremental labor costs we expect.” The deal with the union includes some protections from new technologies that would affect their jobs.The deals with the resort operators were reached about a week before the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a Formula 1 race that winds through the Strip, where most of the resorts are. The event promises to be a major moneymaker for the city’s hospitality industry: Mr. Hornbuckle said his company had sold more than 10,000 tickets to the event and expected to attract $60 million in extra hotel revenue that weekend. More