Evelyn Reynolds

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    Looming UPS Strike Spurs Some Companies to Rethink Supply Chains

    Businesses around the country are facing what could be the latest disruption to how they get their goods to their customers in a timely and affordable fashion.Kathryn Keeler and her husband, Stuart de Haaff, own an olive oil company in the hills of central California. The couple spend their days harvesting olives, bottling the oil, labeling the glass bottles and shipping them out, relying primarily on UPS to get their product to kitchens throughout the United States. They are far from alone. UPS handles about a fourth of packages shipped each day in the United States, according to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index, many of them for small businesses like Ms. Keeler’s company, Rancho Azul y Oro.But with the labor contract between UPS and 325,000 of its workers expiring at the end of the month and a potential strike looming, business owners around the country are facing what could be the latest in a series of supply chain disruptions they have confronted since the start of the pandemic.Some are pre-emptively turning to FedEx, the next largest private carrier in the United States, or the Postal Service. Others are calling their third-party shippers — firms that work with the likes of UPS, FedEx and DHL to handle their clients’ shipping needs — to ensure that their packages can still get to their final destinations even if there is a strike.The logistical challenge is just one more burden on businesses that have been stretched thin over the past few years.“Maybe a larger business can withstand those types of situations,” Ms. Keeler said. But as small-business owners, she and her husband “don’t have a lot of extra time in our day to be on the phone with the post office or FedEx.”Since 2020, the pandemic has strained the global supply chain in a number of ways. E-commerce reached record levels as stuck-at-home Americans bought clothes, furniture, workout equipment and groceries online. Companies had to navigate Covid-related shutdowns at factories in China and Vietnam. There were worldwide delays when a large container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, leading to containers piling up at the Port of Los Angeles. Those situations affected the way goods came into the United States.A UPS strike could hobble the way brands move their wares domestically.“This is something that affects us on our home turf, and how do we solve for that?” said Ron Robinson, the chief executive of BeautyStat Cosmetics, which uses UPS to ship its skin care products to retailers like Ulta and Macy’s.One strategy that his team will lean on is trying to bundle packages, sending as many as it can out at once, he said.Switching to another carrier is going to cost some companies.Ryan Culver, the chief executive of Platterful, a monthly charcuterie board subscription service, also uses UPS. Switching over to FedEx Express — necessary to ensure that the meats in his packages reach consumers in time — would cost about $5 to $10 more per delivery.Using FedEx to ship goods can sometimes be more costly for small businesses.Hunter Kerhart for The New York TimesTeri Johnson, the founder of Harlem Candle Company, received an email on June 26 from her third-party shipper about a potential UPS strike. It suggested she switch to FedEx. That will cost her about $2 extra for each candle shipped in the greater New York area. Sending her candles to California will cost even more.“We don’t really have a choice right now,” Ms. Johnson said.FedEx said it was accepting additional volume for a limited time and would assess how much capacity its network could accommodate. “Shippers who are considering shifting volume to FedEx, or are currently in discussions with the company to open a new account, are encouraged to begin shipping with FedEx now,” the company said in a post on its website on Thursday.The Postal Service said in an emailed statement that it “has a strong network, and we have the capacity to deliver what is tendered to us.”Larger companies are relying on sophisticated backup plans that have been tested over the past few years. The pandemic and previous tariff trade wars pushed many major retailers with global supply chains to diversify the countries where their vendors are and the parcel carriers they use.“We’ve been focused on investing in a lot of transportation solutions that allow us to more nimbly move freight between carriers,” said Alexis DePree, the chief supply chain officer at Nordstrom. “We can do that with a lot more flexibility and speed than we were able to in the past.”Some third-party carriers are seeing a boost in their businesses as the possibility of a UPS strike comes into focus for their clients. Stord, a third-party logistics and technology provider based in Atlanta whose clients include apparel makers and consumer-package companies, has been sending emails out telling its clients not to worry. Stord uses a cloud-based platform to offer services like warehousing and fulfillment and handles tens of thousands of their packages a day.By combining the volume of its broad portfolio of client brands and using software to make decisions, Stord has the leverage to better negotiate prices with the large parcel carriers, said Sean Henry, the company’s chief executive.“We’ve been negotiating with FedEx and U.S.P.S. about rates around UPS so our customers don’t have to do that,” he said.Stord said more of its clients had asked it to negotiate with carriers on their behalf. He said that equated to “tens of millions of dollars of annual revenue” for his business.Still, some business owners are not letting the possibility of a UPS strike stress them out just yet.Bill McHenry, president of Widgeteer, which sells cookware to large retailers, said he felt “kind of numb” after navigating the pandemic-related challenges. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff and the stories that I’ve heard and things we’ve had to go through and survive — not just the pricing but the upheaval of thinking you have a container but don’t,” he said.He said the potential rail strike last December had been a bigger concern for him.In the meantime, the possibility that a deal could be reached between UPS and the union that represents its workers, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, remains. The union announced on Wednesday that negotiations had broken down, after previously saying the sides had reached a tentative agreement. If an agreement is not reached, a strike could happen as early as Aug. 1.If that occurs, “we would be collateral damage,” Ms. Keeler said. More

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    Fed’s Goolsbee sees ‘golden path’ to lower inflation without a recession

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    Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee told CNBC on Friday that he’s confident inflation can be tamed without a recession, even with additional interest rate increases likely.
    Economists, including those working at the Fed, see credit contraction leading to at least a modest recession later this year.

    Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said Friday he’s confident inflation can be tamed without a recession, even with additional interest rate increases likely.
    Speaking to CNBC following the release of the June nonfarm payrolls report, he said the ongoing job growth is part of the Fed’s “golden path” toward restoring price stability without taking the economy.

    “What the Fed’s overriding goal right now is to get inflation down. We’re going to succeed at it and to do that without a recession would be a triumph,” Goolsbee told CNBC’s Steve Liesman during a “Squawk on the Street” interview. “That’s the golden path, and I feel like we’re on that golden path. So I hope we keep putting off the recession to forever. Let’s never have a recession again.”
    Economists, including those working at the Fed, see credit contraction leading to at least a modest recession later this year or early in 2024.
    However, one of the economy’s key cogs, the jobs market, is showing only slight signs of slowing down. Payrolls grew by just 209,000 in June, below Wall Street estimates, but an unemployment rate at 3.6% suggests a resilient economy.
    “Overall, the jobs market is outstanding and is getting back to a balanced, sustainable level,” Goolsbee said.
    Inflation, though, has remained stubbornly high and well above the Fed’s 2% goal.

    Following the June meeting, a strong majority of Federal Open Market Committee officials indicated in their updated quarterly projections that they see at least two more quarter percentage point rate hikes before the end of 2023. Though Goolsbee said he is confident the that inflation is ebbing, he also sees more tightening as likely.
    “The consensus of almost all the FOMC in the statement of projections is that over this year, we will have one or two more hikes. I haven’t seen anything that says that’s wrong,” he said. “That is on the golden path where we get inflation down to something like our target and we do it without a recession.”
    Fed policy is seen as operating with a lag, meaning that the 10 rate hikes since March 2022 likely haven’t worked their way through the economy yet. Goolsbee said he is undecided about whether to hike at the July 25-26 FOMC meeting.
    “There are some modest increases to come, but we’ve done a lot of the lifting and now we’re waiting for the impact,” he said. More

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    U.S. Economy Adds 209,000 Jobs in June as Pace of Hiring Cools

    Hiring slowed last month, a sign that the Federal Reserve’s inflation-fighting campaign is taking hold. But with rising wages and low unemployment, the labor market remains resilient.The U.S. labor market showed signs of continued cooling last month but extended a two-and-a-half-year streak of job growth, the Labor Department said Friday.U.S. employers added 209,000 jobs, seasonally adjusted, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent from 3.7 percent in May as joblessness remained near lows not seen in more than half a century.June was the 30th consecutive month of job growth, but the gain was down from a revised 306,000 in May and was the lowest since the streak began.Wages, as measured by average hourly earnings for workers, rose 0.4 percent from the previous month and 4.4 percent from June 2022. Those increases matched the May trend but exceeded expectations, a potential point of concern for Federal Reserve officials, who have tried to rein in wages and prices by ratcheting up interest rates.Still, the response to the report from economists, investors and labor market analysts was generally positive. The resilience of the job market has bolstered hopes that inflation can be brought under control while the economy continues to grow.The year-over-year gain in wages exceeded that of prices for the first time since 2021Year-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    Jobs Report Not Expected to Affect Fed Interest Rates

    Federal Reserve policymakers are keenly focused on the strength of the labor market as they debate how much further the economy needs to cool to ensure that quick inflation fades back to a normal pace. Fresh labor market data released on Friday probably offered little to dissuade them from raising interest rates at their meeting this month.The June data is the last payrolls report that officials will receive before the central bank’s July 25-26 meeting. It underscored many of the labor market themes that have been present for months: Although job growth is gradually slowing, wage growth remains abnormally quick and the unemployment rate is very low at 3.6 percent.Investors widely expected the Fed to raise rates at their July meeting even before the report, and the June data reinforced that prediction. Many paid especially close attention to the pay data: Average hourly earnings climbed 4.4 percent over the year through June, versus an expectation for 4.2 percent, and wage gains for May were revised higher. After months of slowing, those earnings figures have held roughly steady since March.“On balance, it’s strong enough for the Fed to think they still have some more work to do,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America, explaining that the report contained both signs of early weakness and signs of sustained strength. “Hiring is cooling, but the labor market is still hot.”Fed officials are closely watching wage data, because they worry that if pay growth remains unusually rapid, it could make it difficult to bring elevated inflation fully back to their 2 percent goal. The logic? When companies compensate their workers better, they might also raise their prices to cover their higher wage bills. At the same time, families earning more will be more capable of shouldering higher prices.Fed officials have been surprised by the economy’s staying power 16 months into their push to slow it down by raising interest rates, which makes borrowing money more expensive and is meant to cool consumer and business demand. Growth is slower, but the housing market has begun to stabilize and the job market has remained abnormally strong with plentiful opportunities and at least some bargaining power for many workers.That resilience — along with the stubbornness of quick inflation, particularly for services — is why policymakers expect to continue raising interest rates, which they have already lifted above 5 percent for the first time in about 15 years. Officials have ratcheted up rates in smaller increments this year than last year, and they skipped a rate move at their June meeting for the first time in 11 gatherings. But several policymakers have been clear that even as the pace moderates, they still expect to raise interest rates further.“It can make sense to skip a meeting and move more gradually,” Lorie K. Logan, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said during a speech this week, while noting that it is important for officials to follow up by continuing to lift rates.She added that “inflation and the labor market evolving more or less as expected wouldn’t really change the outlook.”Fed officials predicted in June that they would raise interest rates twice more this year — assuming they move in quarter-point increments — and that the labor market would soften, but only slightly. They saw the unemployment rate rising to 4.1 percent by the end of the year.Policymakers will not release new economic projections until September, but Wall Street will monitor how policymakers are reacting to economic developments to gauge whether another move this year is likely.“Jobs growth has slowed but remains too strong to justify an extended Fed pause,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, explaining that the fresh data gave the Fed “little reason” to hold off on a July increase. The question is what happens after that.For now, investors see another rate increase after July as possible but not guaranteed, and the June jobs report did little to change that. The yield on the two-year Treasury bond, which is sensitive to changes in investors’ expectations for interest rates going forward, eased to around 4.9 percent, from over 5 percent. The move reflected in part investors’ relief that the jobs numbers had not followed a series of other data points this week that exceeded expectations.Some on Wall Street expect the economy to soften more substantially in the coming months, which could prod the Fed to hold off on future rate moves. It often takes months or years for higher borrowing costs to have their full economic effect, so more slowing could be in the pipeline already.This month, one of Wall Street’s widely watched recession indicators, which compares yields on short- and long-dated government bonds, sent its strongest signal since the early 1980s that a downturn is coming.But Fed officials aren’t so sure. Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, said on Friday on CNBC that getting inflation down without a recession would be a “triumph.”“That’s the golden path — and I feel like we’re on that golden path,” Mr. Goolsbee said. More

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    The unemployment rate among Black workers increased in June for the second month in a row

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    The overall U.S. unemployment rate declined in June, but a negative trend among Black workers may be emerging, according to the latest nonfarm payrolls report.
    Overall, the unemployment rate last month was 3.6%, a 0.1 percentage point decrease from May, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday. However, Black workers saw their unemployment rate rise to 6% in June from 5.6% in May, making it the second consecutive monthly increase.

    Within that demographic, unemployment among women ticked higher to 5.4% in June from 5.3% in the prior month. Meanwhile, it grew to 5.9% in June, up from 5.6% in May, for men. The labor force participation rate for Black men inched downward, while women’s fell to 62.9% from 63.9%.

    Economists will need to keep an eye out for the next round of payrolls data to determine whether a trend is developing.
    “Sometimes we are cautious about saying a one-month change is very significant because sometimes the data is noisy, but a rule of thumb is three numbers is a trend,” said Carmen Sanchez Cumming, a research associate at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. “If the employment level for Black workers has gone down pretty significantly for the last three months, then that is a red flag.”
    Cumming attributed the increase in unemployment among Black workers to the mechanics of the economy slowing down. As the economy rebounded after the pandemic, companies made large leaps to recover the lost positions. For instance, employers boosted wages in a bid to hire more employees. Now that the labor market is reaching pre-pandemic capacity, companies are less likely to continue adding jobs at the same pace.
    Additionally, the jobs market could finally be reacting to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases, she added.

    Meanwhile, Latino workers also saw an increase in the unemployment rate, to 4.3% in June from 4% in May. However, labor force participation inched higher for the group, rising to 67.3%, compared to 66.9% in the previous month.
    Hispanic men’s unemployment rate was 3.8% in June, reflecting a decline of 0.2 percentage point from May, while labor force participation held at nearly the same rate. Among Hispanic women, the unemployment rate jumped to 4.1% in June from 3.4% in May, with labor force participation at about the same level as the previous month.
    “For Latino workers, it’s a little more murky because their unemployment rate increased this month but had decreased last month,” Cumming said. “Overall, their employment levels are still going up. So, a less clear picture there.” More

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    Payrolls rose by 209,000 in June, less than expected, as jobs growth wobbles

    Nonfarm payrolls increased 209,000 in June, below the consensus estimate for 240,000.
    The unemployment rate was 3.6%, down 0.1 percentage point. However, a more encompassing jobless level rose to 6.9%.
    Government hiring led the job gains, followed by health care, social assistance and construction.
    Wages rose 4.4% from a year ago, slightly higher than expectations.

    Employment growth eased in June, taking some steam out of what had been a stunningly strong labor market.
    Nonfarm payrolls increased 209,000 in June and the unemployment rate was 3.6%, the Labor Department reported Friday. That compared to the Dow Jones consensus estimates for growth of 240,000 and a jobless level of 3.6%.

    The total, while still solid from a historical perspective, marked a considerable drop from May’s downwardly revised total of 306,000 and was the slowest month for job creation since payrolls fell by 268,000 in December 2020. The unemployment rate declined 0.1 percentage point.
    Closely watched wages numbers were slightly stronger than expected. Average hourly earnings increased by 0.4% for the month and 4.4% from a year ago.

    Job growth would have been even lighter without a boost in government jobs, which increased by 60,000, almost all of which came from the state and local levels.
    Other sectors showing strong gains were health care (41,000), social assistance (24,000) and construction (23,000).
    Leisure and hospitality, which had been the strongest job-growth engine over the past three years, added just 21,000 jobs for the month. The sector has cooled off considerably, showing only muted gains for the past three months.

    The retail sector lost 11,000 jobs in June while transportation and warehousing saw a decline of 7,000.
    There had been some anticipation that the Labor Department report could show a much higher than anticipated number after payrolls processing firm ADP on Thursday reported growth in private sector jobs of 497,000.
    Markets moved lower following the release of the jobs report, with futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average off nearly 90 points. Longer-dated Treasury yields were slightly higher.
    “A 209,000 increase in payrolls can hardly be described as weak,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management. “But after yesterday’s ADP wrongfooted investors into expecting another bumper jobs number, the market may be disappointed.”
    The labor force participation rate, considered a key metric for resolving a sharp divide between worker demand and supply, held steady at 62.6% for the fourth consecutive month and is still below its pre-pandemic level. However, the prime-age participation rate — measuring those between 25 and 54 years of age — rose to 83.5%, its highest in 21 years.
    A more encompassing unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons rose to 6.9%, the highest since August 2022. At the same time, the unemployment rate for Blacks jumped to 6%, a 0.4 percentage point increase, and rose to 3.2% for Asians, a 0.3 percentage point rise.
    In addition to a downward revision of 33,000 for the May count, the Bureau of Labor Statistics sliced April’s total by 77,000 to 217,000. That brought the six-month average to 278,000, down sharply from 399,000 in 2022.
    The jobs numbers are considered a key in determining where Federal Reserve monetary policy is headed.
    Policymakers see the strong jobs market and the supply-demand imbalance as helping propel inflation that around this time in 2022 was running at its highest level in 41 years.
    They are using interest rate increases to try to cool the economy, but the labor market thus far has defied the central bank’s tightening efforts.
    In recent days, Fed officials have provided indication that more rate hikes are likely even though they decided against moving at the June meeting.
    Markets widely expect a quarter percentage point increase in July that would take the Fed’s benchmark borrowing rate to a targeted range between 5.25%-5.5%. The outlook was little changed following the release, with traders pricing in a 92.4% chance of a hike at the July 25-26 meeting.
    The June report “suggests labor market conditions are finally beginning to ease more markedly,” wrote Andrew Hunter, deputy chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “That said, it is unlikely to stop the Fed from hiking rates again later this month, particularly when the downward trend in wage growth appears to be stalling.” More

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    Fed Rate Increases Hinge on Strength of Jobs and Economy

    Federal Reserve policymakers are debating how much further they need to raise interest rates to ensure that inflation speedily returns to a normal pace, and that calculus is likely to depend heavily on the job market’s strength.Officials will closely watch the employment report on Friday, the last reading on job growth that they will receive before their July 25-26 meeting, for a hint at how much momentum remains in the American economy.Fed officials have been surprised by the economy’s staying power 16 months into their push to slow it down by raising interest rates, which makes borrowing money more expensive. While growth is slower, the housing market has begun to stabilize and the job market has remained abnormally strong with plentiful opportunities and solid pay growth. Fed officials worry that if wage growth remains unusually rapid, it could make it difficult to bring elevated inflation fully back to their 2 percent goal.That resilience — and the stubbornness of quick inflation, particularly for services — is why policymakers expect to continue raising interest rates, which they have already lifted above 5 percent for the first time in about 15 years. Officials have ratcheted up rates in smaller increments this year than last year, and they skipped a rate move at their June meeting for the first time in 11 gatherings. But several policymakers have been clear that even as the pace moderates, they still expect to raise interest rates further.“It can make sense to skip a meeting and move more gradually,” Lorie K. Logan, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said during a speech this week, while noting that it is important for officials to now follow up by continuing to lift rates.She added that “inflation and the labor market evolving more or less as expected wouldn’t really change the outlook.”Fed officials predicted in June that they would raise interest rates twice more this year — assuming they move in quarter-point increments — and that the labor market would soften, but only slightly. They saw the unemployment rate rising to 4.1 percent from 3.7 percent currently.Investors widely expect Fed officials to raise interest rates at their July meeting, and the strength of the labor market could help to shape the outlook after that. While policymakers will not release new economic projections until September, Wall Street will monitor how policymakers are reacting to economic developments to gauge whether another move this year is likely. More

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    U.S. and China, by the Numbers

    From movie theaters to military spending, here’s how one of the world’s most important economic relationships stacks up.China and the United States are locked in an increasingly intense rivalry when it comes to national security and economic competition, with American leaders frequently identifying China as their greatest long-term challenger.Yet the world’s two largest economies, which together represent 40 percent of the global output, remain integral partners in many ways. They sell and buy important products from each other, finance each other’s businesses, provide a home to millions of each other’s people, and create apps and movies for audiences in both countries.As Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen meets with top Chinese officials in Beijing this week, her challenge will be to navigate this multifaceted relationship, which ranges from conflict to cooperation. Here are some figures that illustrate the links between the two nations.Economic and military powerThe U.S. economy continues to outstrip China’s by dollar value: In 2022, Chinese gross domestic product was $18 trillion, compared with $25.5 trillion for the United States.But China’s population is more than four times America’s. And the economic picture looks different when adjusted for local prices: Based on purchasing power parity, China’s share of world G.D.P. is 18.9 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, surpassing the United States at 15.4 percent.China has provided more than a trillion dollars for global infrastructure through its Belt and Road Initiative, which analysts see as an effort to project power around the world.The rapid growth and modernization of China’s military have sparked concerns in the United States. China has more naval vessels than the United States and more military personnel, with 2.5 million in 2019.But American armed forces are far better equipped, and the United States still spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined — $877 billion in 2022, compared with $292 billion in reported spending by China.Trade relationsDespite the rising tensions, trade between the countries remains extremely strong. China is America’s third-largest trading partner, after Canada and Mexico.U.S. imports of goods and services from China hit a record $563.6 billion last year. But the share of U.S. imports that come from China has been falling, a sign of how some businesses are breaking off ties with China.China is also a major export market, with half of all soybeans that the United States sends abroad going to China. The U.S.-China Business Council estimated that U.S. exports to China supported nearly 1.1 million jobs in the United States in 2021.China dominates supply chains for both critical and everyday goods. It is the world’s largest producer of steel, solar panels, electronics, coal, plastics, buttons and car batteries, and it has quadrupled its car exports in just two years, becoming the world’s largest auto exporter through its growing clout in electric vehicles.The United States has steadily expanded sanctions against Chinese companies and organizations because of national security and human rights concerns, placing 721 Chinese companies, organizations and people on an “entity list” that restricts their ability to buy products from the United States, according to the Commerce Department.Financial and corporate tiesChina is one of America’s largest lenders and holds nearly $1 trillion of U.S. debt.Members of the S&P 500 index, which tracks the largest public companies in the United States, generate 7.6 percent of their revenue in mainland China, the biggest source of international sales by far, according to FactSet. The revenue that large U.S. firms derive from China is more than their revenue from the next three countries — Japan, Britain and Germany — combined.But the outlook for American companies doing business in China has turned grimmer. In the American Chamber of Commerce in China’s most recent survey of U.S. companies in China, 56 percent described their business as unprofitable in 2022, with some blaming China’s strict Covid-19 lockdown measures.Also in the survey, 46 percent of American companies thought that U.S.-China relations would deteriorate in 2023, while only 13 percent thought they would improve.Personal and cultural connectionsThe United States is home to nearly 2.4 million Chinese immigrants, making it the top destination for Chinese immigrants worldwide. Chinese immigrants in the United States are more than twice as likely as U.S.-born adults to have a graduate or professional degree.In the 2021-22 school year, 296,000 students from China attended U.S. institutions of higher learning, nearly a third of all international students in the United States.Roughly three in four Chinese Americans experienced racial discrimination in the previous 12 months, and 9 percent were physically intimidated or assaulted, according to a survey by Columbia University and the Committee of 100, a Chinese American leadership organization.Long considered a low-end manufacturer, China has become more of a source for innovation and cultural creation. TikTok, the popular social media app whose parent company is China’s ByteDance, says it has more than 150 million users in the United States.Last year, 20 American movies opened in China, and their box office total was roughly $673 million, according to Comscore. China had more than 80,000 movie screens by late 2021, compared with roughly 39,000 in the United States.Pandemic restrictions have made it much harder to travel between the countries. Air carriers are running only 24 flights a week between the United States and China, compared with about 350 before the pandemic.Sapna Maheshwari and Nicole Sperling contributed reporting. More