Daily Briefing – 436
JOLTS: 4.5 Million Americans Quit Jobs in November, Job Openings Decrease
The number of Americans voluntarily quitting their jobs surged to a record 4.5 million in November, a show of confidence in the labor market and an indication that higher wages could prevail for a while. The 370,000 increase in quits reported in the Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, on Tuesday was led by the accommodation and food services industry.
Job openings dropped by 529,000 to a still-high 10.6 million on the last day of November. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 11.075 million vacancies. There were large declines in job openings in the accommodation and food services, construction and nondurable goods manufacturing industries. Hiring was little changed at 6.7 million.
NY Fed Research: A New Barometer of Global Supply Chain Pressures
Supply chain disruptions have become a major challenge for the global economy since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several measures have been used to gauge these disruptions, although those measures tend to focus only on selected dimensions of global supply chains.
In this post, the authors propose a new gauge, the Global Supply Chain Pressure Index (GSCPI), which integrates a number of commonly used metrics with an aim to provide a more comprehensive summary of potential disruptions affecting global supply chains.
Senate Democrats Hit Pause on Climate, Social Spending Package
Democratic aides say the Build Back Better bill won’t be ready for floor action any time soon and predict the wide-ranging legislation that the White House has negotiated with centrist Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) may have to be completely overhauled.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) informed colleagues Monday the Senate will turn immediately to voting rights legislation and would vote to reform the chamber’s filibuster rule by Martin Luther King Jr. Day, on Jan. 17, if Senate Republicans block it. Schumer made no mention of Build Back Better or when it might come to the floor,pldespite promising at the end of last year to schedule a vote on it before Christmas.
New York Publishes Final Paid Sick Leave Regulations
On Dec. 22, 2021, New York published its final paid sick leave regulations. As a reminder, employers with fewer than 10 employees (and under $1 million net income) must provide at least 40 hours of unpaid sick leave per year; employers between 10 and 100 employees (as well as those employers with under 10 employees and over $1 million net income) are required to provide at least 40 hours of PSL per year; and employers with 100+ employees must provide at least 56 hours of PSL per year.
One of the vaguest parts of PSL was whether employers who frontload the full amount of PSL for a year’s time period still must allow employees to carry over unused leave from year to year. The Department did clarify that employers may give employees the option to be paid out for unused leave at year’s end, rather than carry over the unused leave.
Read more at Bond Schoeneck and King
US COVID – Infections Top One Million After Holiday Backlog
The U.S. reported a record 1.08 million Covid-19 infections on Monday as most states worked to clear backlogs after pausing during the New Year’s holiday. The reports pushed the seven-day average of daily reported infections to 480,273, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. That level is nearly double the peak reached at the height of last winter’s case surge.
Hospitalizations for confirmed or suspected Covid-19 cases reached a seven-day average of 97,855 on Monday, according to data posted by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. That is up 41% in the past two weeks but below both the pandemic peak of 137,510 on Jan. 10, 2021, and the smaller peak of 102,967 on Sept. 4, 2021, during the Delta-variant surge. While Covid-19 tests remain in short supply in much of the U.S., testing was less robust last year, complicating comparisons between pandemic surges.
NYS Vaccine and COVID Update
Vaccine Stats as of January 4:
One Vaccine Dose
- 84.0% of all New Yorkers – 15,769,680 (plus 17,911 from a day earlier).
- In the Hudson Valley 1,1,638,803 (plus 2,828).
Fully Vaccinated
- 71.8% of all New Yorkers – 13,988,513 (plus 4,791).
- In the Hudson Valley – 1,428,536 (plus 1,932).
Boosters Given
- All New Yorkers – 4,781,329
- In the Hudson Valley – 367,768
The Governor updated COVID data through January 3. There were 99 COVID related deaths for a total of 61,607.
Hospitalizations:
- Patients Currently in Hospital statewide: 10,411.
7 Day Average Positivity Rate – Cases per 100K population
- Statewide 21.91% – 344.18 positive cases per 100,00 population
- Mid-Hudson: 21.81% – 321.16 positive cases per 100,00 population
Useful Websites:
As Omicron Surges Here’s the Latest Science on the Variant
- Researchers in South Africa estimate that the omicron variant is 100.3 percent more transmissible than the original version of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and 36.5 percent more transmissible than the delta variant.
- Research suggests that people who have recovered from the omicron variant of the coronavirus may be better able to fend off the delta variant, which is still circulating at high rates. The CDC estimated that delta made up 41 percent of cases for the week ending with Dec. 25.
- Health officials in the U.K. looked at data from 198,348 confirmed omicron cases and compared it to delta cases. The data suggest that vaccines are 72 percent effective against hospitalization from the omicron variant from two weeks after a second dose up to 24 weeks after. This vaccine effectiveness is lower than for the delta variant, but the data suggest that vaccines still protect against symptomatic disease and hospitalization to a certain point.
WHO Chief: Vaccine Equality Could End Pandemic in 2022
The ongoing pandemic could end this year, but only if the global community works to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are distributed equally, says World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, noting that continued inequity increases the risk of new variants emerging.
The COVAX initiative fell short of its goal of delivering two billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines in 2021, and the agency reported nearly five million new cases of the virus worldwide last week.
Read more at the times of Israel
Americans Borrowed A Record $1.61 Trillion to Buy Homes in 2021
Mortgage lenders issued $1.61 trillion in purchase loans in 2021, up from $1.48 trillion in loans issued in 2020 and marking the highest mortgage borrowing numbers ever recorded. The 2021 figures exceeded a previous record set in 2005, when $1.51 trillion in loans were issued, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The record-setting numbers reflect a red-hot housing market. At the beginning of the pandemic, people were drawn to the market with low interest rates and desire to have more space at home — desires that continue to drive up house prices, the Journal noted.
No Surprises – State’s Independent Redistricting Committee Deadlocked
Five Republicans on the State Independent Redistricting Committee and five Democrats could not come to a consensus proposal to draw new district lines in the Assembly, Senate and House of Representatives, so both of their plans were submitted to the state legislature for their review.
Democrats said they submitted a plan, but that the Republican members of the commission refused to compromise. Republicans maintained the purpose of the commission was to develop a consensus plan.
United Van Lines 45thAnnual National Movers Study Reveals The Top States People Moved To and From
United Van Lines released the company’s 45th Annual National Movers Study Monday The survey indicates Americans were on the move to lower-density areas and to be closer to their families throughout last year. The annual study tracks the company’s exclusive data for customers’ state-to-state migration patterns. It determined Vermont is the state with the highest percentage of inbound migration (74%) with United Van Lines. South Dakota (69%), South Carolina (63%), West Virginia (63%) and Florida (62%) were also revealed as the top inbound states for 2021.
Topping the list of outbound locations was New Jersey (71%), which has held the spot for the past four years. Meanwhile, states like Illinois (67%), New York (63%), Connecticut (60%) and California (59%), which have regularly appeared on the top outbound list in recent years, again ranked among states with the largest exoduses.
Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress Appoints Adam Bosch as President and Chief Executive Officer
The board of directors at Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress yesterday announced the appointment of Adam Bosch to be the organization’s next president and chief executive officer. He has worked as a journalist, college professor, and policy analyst across the region before joining the senior leadership team of the New York City water supply system. Bosch was born and raised in the Town of Newburgh and graduated from Wallkill High School. He earned his bachelor’s degree from SUNY New Paltz, and his master’s degree from Columbia University. He lives in Saugerties with his wife, Jennifer, and their 8-year-old son, Tristan.
The Council of Industry, one of the founding partners of Pattern for Progress in 1965, looks forward to working with Adam.
Ford F-150 Lightning Order Bank Opens; Production Capacity Targets 150K Per Year
Ford Motor Co., which shut down its reservation system for the all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck in an attempt to manage overwhelming response, will start accepting purchase orders this week, the company announced Tuesday. For the first time, reservations can be converted to actual orders. The earliest reservation holders will receive “invitations” by email on Thursday to place orders to purchase the truck, the company said. Deliveries begin in the spring.
Ford has already said it doesn’t expect to fill all orders in 2022. The Dearborn automaker said previously it planned to build 80,000 F-150 Lightning pickups annually at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn next year. Now Ford said it’s striving to double production goals to 150,000 annually.
Read more at The Detroit Free Press
Toyota Overtakes GM as Best-Selling Auto Maker in U.S.
Toyota Motor Corp. TM +7.08% has for the first time overtaken General Motors Co. GM +6.88% as the U.S.’s top-selling car company in 2021, a change driven largely by a global computer-chip shortage that dealt an uneven blow to the car business.
The Japanese auto maker, which for decades has worked to expand its presence in the U.S., outsold GM by roughly 114,000 vehicles in the full-year 2021. Toyota’s total U.S. sales of 2.3 million were up about 10% compared with 2020, the company said Tuesday. By contrast, GM reported a nearly 13% slide in results for a total of 2.2 million vehicles sold in 2021, as the semiconductor shortage took a bigger toll on its manufacturing operations and left dealers with fewer vehicles to sell. GM had been the no. 1 auto-seller in the U.S. for decades.
US ADP December Preview: Suddenly its Inflation Not Jobs
The clients of Automatic Data Processing (ADP) are forecast to have added 413,000 employees, the lowest since 310,000 in August, after averaging 543,000 in September, October and November. Nonfarm Payrolls are projected to nearly double to 400,000 in December following November’s disappointing 210,000, which was the weakest monthly total since the economy lost 306,000 jobs in December 2020.
Though the two reports draw their data from the US labor market they are quite different in concept and their monthly results have been poorly correlated since the pandemic took hold in March 2020. The ADP employment total is simpler and more accurate, but less encompassing. Its National Employment Report records the net employee additions or subtractions of the firm’s 460,000 US clients covering about 26 million workers. The Employment Situation Report from the US Labor Department attempts to catalog the entire American employment market in one document. It tracks both hirings and firings as reported to the government and estimates the number of new jobs created each month but not on government books.
Pine Bush School Superintendent Tim Mains Dies
The Council of Industry was saddened to learn Pine Bush School District Superintendent Tim Mains died suddenly over the holiday break. Mains was a strong and compassionate leader who always put the district’s students first and continuously looked for ways to improve learning and create new pathways to success. Born in Indiana, he was not only an educator but an activist in the community. After he became the first openly gay candidate to be elected to public office in New York state, he had served as a Rochester city councilmember for 20 years.
We will miss his leadership, but will continue to grow our partnership with Pine Bush that is part of his legacy.
