MarketWatch (October 19)
“More home builders are cutting prices on new houses even as their construction costs increase, as buyers flee the housing market.” Excluding the pandemic, “buyer traffic to newly built homes” slumped to the lowest levels since 2012. “The average price cut was 6% for the seventh month in a row, and 65% of builders were also using incentives to boost sales.”
Tags: 2012, Boost, Buyers, Construction costs, Home builders, Housing market, Incentives, Newly built homes, Pandemic, Prices, Sales
USA Today (October 3)
“Six years after the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans still feel gloomy and no once-a-month economic report seems to make them happy.” While the economy and jobs market have both surpassed pre-pandemic levels, consumer sentiment still lingers. “Sentiment has ebbed and flowed in the last six years, but has never climbed back to pre-pandemic levels.”
Tags: Americans, Consumer sentiment, COVID-19, Economic report, Economy, Gloomy, Happy, Jobs market, Lingers, Pandemic, Six years, Surpassed
Washington Post (February 14)
Continuing a trend from 2025, “nearly all of the jobs added to the U.S. economy in recent months have come from one industry: health care.” Since the pandemic, the health care sector has benefitted from changing demographics and “buoyed an otherwise slow labor market.” Over one in six “Americans is now 65 or older, an age group that spends an outsize amount on medical care” and estimates suggest that the number of Americans over 80 will double by 2045.
Tags: 2025, 65%, 80, Demographics, Double, Economy, Health care, Jobs, Labor market, Medical care, Pandemic, Trend, U.S.
SF Gate (November 6)
“America’s tech industry continues to lead in a grim metric.” Challenger, Gray & Christmas released a report that “tracked layoff announcements from companies” and “in 2025, the tech industry had the highest recorded number of layoffs for the month of October: 33,281 compared with 5,639 in September.” But the report found layoffs are hardly restricted to the tech industry. “Total year-to-date job cuts in the U.S. are at their highest level since the pandemic struck in 2020” while “layoffs for the month of October” were the highest recorded since 2003.
Tags: 2003, 2020, 2025, Grim metric, Highest, Job cuts, Layoffs, October, Pandemic, Tech industry, U.S.
Market Watch (July 14)
In contrast with previous guidance, Goldman Sachs now expects U.S. home prices to grow only 0.5% in 2025 and 1.2% the following year, “a huge drop from the growth the market saw during the pandemic.” Goldman cited “three big reasons for its pessimism regarding home prices: slowing prices, rising housing supply and persistently high mortgage rates.”
Tags: 0.5%, 2025, Drop, Goldman Sachs, Growth, Guidance, Home prices, Housing supply, Market, Pandemic, Pessimism, Slowing, U.S.
The Times (May 13)
“The United States is expected to lose $12.5 billion in international travel spending by the end of the year.” According to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) “reports of tourists being stopped at the border, visa detentions, a tariff war waged by the Trump administration and a higher exchange rate” are all factors in what they estimate will reduce 2025 spending by foreign tourists in the U.S. to $169 billion, “down 7 per cent from $181 billion last year and 22 per cent from the peak before the pandemic.”
Tags: $12.5 billion, $169 billion, 2025, Border, Exchange rate, International travel, Pandemic, Reduce, Spending, Tariff war, Tourists, Trump, U.S., Visa detentions, WTTC
Financial Times (February 27)
Although “some demographic experts had been hopeful of a pent-up baby boom in Japan following the pandemic,” 2024 confirmed the worst. “The number of babies born in Japan last year fell to the lowest level since records began 125 years ago as the country’s demographic crisis deepens and government efforts to reverse the decline continue to fail.” For nine years straight, “the decline in births has continued unabated…. Combined with a record 1.6mn deaths last year, the figures mean Japan’s population shrank by almost 900,000 people, net of immigration.”
Tags: 2024, Babies, Baby boom, Births, Deaths, Decline, Demographic crisis, Experts, Fail, Government, Immigration, Japan, Pandemic, Pent-up, Population, Record
Mint (December 12)
“Commercial real estate investment volume in Japan jumped 21% year-on-year to ¥2.6 trillion in the first half, according to Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.,” placing Tokyo ahead of New York and London as “the most active global city.” Largely recovering from the pandemic, Tokyo office vacancies in November fell to a four-year low of 4.16%.
Tags: ¥2.6 trillion, 21%, Commercial real estate, First-half, Investment volume, Japan, Jones Lang LaSalle, London, New York, November, Office vacancies, Pandemic, Tokyo
The Economist (November 23)
Across Asia a surprising and unwelcome phenomenon is arising: middle-class stagnation. Over the past three years, for example, 6 million Indonesians fell “into the ‘aspiring middle class,’” and are now “a stone’s throw away from poverty.” The nation’s middle-class population share dropped “to 17% from 22% before the pandemic.” This “middle-class malaise” is not restricted to Indonesia and may “shake up everything from profits to politics” throughout Asia.
Tags: 17%, 6 million, Asia, Aspiring, Indonesians, Malaise, Middle class, Pandemic, Politics, Population, Poverty, Profits, Stagnation, Surprising, Unwelcome
The Independent (November 21)
“The latest public sector borrowing figures are enough to have anyone inside 11 Downing Street heading for the drinks cabinet. The total came to £17.4bn in October; that’s £1.6bn more than this time last year, £5bn higher than City forecasts, and…. worryingly close to the £18.2bn recorded in October 2020, during the height of the pandemic.” All of this suggests “more tax rises could be on the way.”
Tags: £17.4bn, 2020, Borrowing, Downing Street, October, Pandemic, Public sector, Tax rises
