Daily Briefing – 446
Almost 8.8 Million Americans Were Out Sick or Caring for Someone With COVID-19 in Early January
A U.S. Census Bureau survey conducted in early January said almost 8.8 million people were out of work because they were sick or caring for someone with symptoms of Covid-19. That is by far the highest such figure in the bureau’s “household pulse” survey since it began in mid-2020, exceeding the 6.6 million recorded in January 2021 and three million from December’s survey. The number of people reporting that they weren’t working due to concern about getting or spreading coronavirus rose to 3.2 million in the January survey from 2.6 million in December.
This double impact from the biggest surge of Covid-19 illnesses so far in the pandemic comes as employers have struggled with an unusually tight labor market and an unemployment rate that is approaching pre-pandemic levels. Job openings have hovered at their highest-ever levels for months. Workers have quit at a record rate. Fewer people are in the workforce than before the pandemic began. Meanwhile, those who are working are getting bigger than usual pay increases amid the highest inflation in four decades.
Hudson Valley Manufacturing Sector Employment Rose a Record 2.9% Year on Year in December, Remains Below Pre-Pandemic Number
For the 12-month period ending December 2021, the private sector job counts in the Hudson Valley rose by 30,100, or 4.1 percent, to 769,300. Job gains were largest in leisure and hospitality (+16,400), professional and business services (+7,400), educational and health services (+4,200), trade, transportation and utilities (+3,200), other services (+1,700), manufacturing (+1,200) and information (+400). Job losses were greatest in natural resources, mining and construction (-3,100) and financial activities (-1,300).
Job counts in the region’s manufacturing sector continued to trend upward, with nine consecutive months of year-over-year gains. Year-over-year in December 2021, the sector grew by 2.9 percent – a record high for the month. While the sector has regained a large portion of the jobs lost, it remains 1,300 or 3.0 percent below the pre-pandemic levels of December 2019.
Labor Market Profile (Hudson Valley) December 2021
J.B. Hunt Sees Supply Chain Kinks Continuing
Asked on trucking company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call about an emerging consensus that the global supply chain situation will gradually improve in 2022 a`s various knots are untied, J.B. Hunt Chief Commercial Officer Shelley Simpson told analysts and investors she’s “not sure how much that consensus is optimism versus reality” and that her team is taking the pulse of clients of just how accurate that consensus will turn out to be.
“Throughout all of 2020 and 2021, when we would make a prediction, typically we were wrong,” Simpson said. “Although I would like to be optimistic, I think this latest round of COVID has caught everyone by surprise. So I can’t say that I feel optimistic about the supply chain challenges going away in the near-term. We are focused on making sure that we help our customers be right.”
CEOs Remain Optimistic in the Face of Omicron
Fortune released a new CEO survey last week, conducted in partnership with Deloitte. It was fielded from Jan. 4 to 12, so after Omicron was in full flower. And what’s particularly interesting is how optimistic the CEOs were in spite of the variant.
Some 65% expected their organization’s growth to be “strong” or “very strong” over the next 12 months, with technology, finance, professional services, and health care companies expressing the most optimism (83%, 76%, 75% and 67%, respectively), while retail and consumer product CEOs were least optimistic (46%)
US COVID – 755,095 New Cases and 1,669 Deaths Averaged Per Day Last Week
The US CDC is currently reporting 67.9 million cumulative cases of COVID-19 and 853,230 deaths. The US is averaging 755,095 new cases and 1,669 deaths per day. Some models estimate that the cumulative number of deaths could rise above 1 million by mid-March, when the Omicron wave is expected to subside. COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US set another record high this week, with a 7-day average of 21,086 new hospitalizations per day. The CDC is also reporting a surge in the number of current hospitalizations, up from an average of 125,106 hospitalized COVID-19 patients on January 10 to 142,595 on January 17, an increase of 14% over that period. The current average is the highest since the beginning of the pandemic.
The US has administered 530.4 million cumulative doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The trend in daily vaccinations continues to decline, down from a recent high of 1.74 million doses per day on December 6 to 1.04 million on January 14.
Read more at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
NYS Vaccine and COVID Update – Cases Per 100k (7-Day Average) Declining in All Regions
Vaccine Stats as of January 23:
One Vaccine Dose
- 86.9% of all New Yorkers – 16,107,375 (plus 10,020from a day earlier).
- In the Hudson Valley 1,673,040 (plus 254).
Fully Vaccinated
- 73.6% of all New Yorkers – 14,284,177 (plus 11,168).
- In the Hudson Valley – 1,456,212 (plus 415).
Boosters Given
- All New Yorkers – 5,507,856
- In the Hudson Valley – 656,347
The Governor updated COVID data through January 23. There were 134 COVID related deaths for a total reported of 64,120.
Hospitalizations:
- Patients Currently in Hospital statewide: 9,847.
7 Day Average Positivity Rate – Cases per 100K population
- Statewide 10.50% – 130.28 positive cases per 100,00 population
- Mid-Hudson: 10.60% – 112.10 positive cases per 100,00 population
Useful Websites:
Third Dose of Pfizer, Moderna Covid-19 Vaccines Offers Strong Protection Against Omicron
Vaccines and booster shots offer the best protection from the Delta and Omicron variants, according to three new studies released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data back up earlier findings supporting booster shots, and offer the first comprehensive insight into how vaccines fare against the Omicron variant. In one of the studies published Friday, a CDC analysis found that a third dose of either the vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE or Moderna Inc. was at least 90% effective against preventing hospitalization from Covid-19 during both the Delta and Omicron periods.
During the Delta period, vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization from Covid-19 was 90% from two weeks until about 6 months after dose two, 81% from at least six months after dose two and 94% at least two weeks after a booster dose. When Omicron was dominant, vaccine effectiveness against hospitalization for the same periods were 81%, 57% and 90%, respectively.
‘Wearable’ Capable of Detecting COVID-19 at Lower Levels
You may soon be able to get a wearable device that would help alert you to potential COVID-19 exposure. Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of Public Health designed the Fresh Air Clip, a 3D-printed air sampler measuring about 1 inch in diameter that collects samples of air on a film inside the badge-shaped device. It doesn’t have a power source.
“The Fresh Air Clip is a wearable device that can be used to assess exposure to SARS-CoV-2 in the air. With this clip we can detect low levels of virus copies that are well below the estimated SARS-CoV-2 infectious dose,” said the study’s author and chip creator Krystal Godri Pollitt, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and a Yale chemical and environmental engineering professor, in a press release about the research.
New York Officials Debate Next Steps in Pandemic
For several hours on Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s choice to lead New York’s sprawling health department took questions from state lawmakers, some of whom questioned whether she would be an independent voice in the new administration. Bassett, as she’s done before, pledged to do so.
But the question underscores the division among Republicans and Democrats in New York state government over how to continue to respond to the public health crisis. Republicans are increasingly restive over mandates for vaccinations, especially among health care workers amid a shortage at hospitals across New York. Democrats, meanwhile, are calling for an even bigger boost of pandemic-related financial assistance for undocumented New Yorkers, as well as tenants and landlords.
OSHA Ends Healthcare ETS
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officially ended its COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) for workers in the healthcare industry. OSHA says it will continue to enforce the standard under the general duty clause while it is working on a permanent rule to replace the ETS.
An OSHA ETS automatically expires after six months under the law, unless the agency decides to renew it. OSHA said it “strongly encourages all healthcare employers to continue to implement the ETS’s requirements in order to protect employees from a hazard that too often causes death or serious physical harm to employees.” The agency also stressed that “the danger faced by healthcare workers continues to be of the highest concern and measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are still needed to protect them.”
UPS CEO On Automation and the War for Talent
Fortune assembled roughly 100 CEOs last via Zoom for its first CEO meeting of 2022. The group focused on identifying top challenges and opportunities that businesses face in the year ahead. No surprise the top challenge was the battle for talent. The opportunity? A chance to reinvent. One notable comment came from Carol Tome, CEO, UPS:
“What we’ve learned is that people move the supply chain. From warehouse workers to dock workers to loaders to drivers to pilots. We need to automate everywhere we can so we don’t have such a reliance on people. And for those activities that you can’t automate, our pay practices… and best place to work practices… are going to have to change in a big way, because there is a war on for talent.”
Jobless Claims Rise
Weekly new jobless claims unexpectedly jumped last week by the most since October, with some renewed virus-related disruptions at least temporarily impeding the labor market’s recovery.
- Initial jobless claims, week ended Jan. 15: 286,000 vs. 225,000 expected and a revised 231,000 during prior week.
- Continuing claims, week ended Jan. 8: 1.635 million vs. 1.563 million expected and a revised 1.551 million during prior week.
Initial unemployment claims rose for a back-to-back week, coming in near the 300,000 level. This represented some backsliding from recent progress in the trajectory of jobless claims. Claims had reached a 52-year low of 188,000 in December, as many employers attempted to keep their existing workforces in the face of widespread labor shortages.
Its Not Just US – Germany’s Labor Shortage
Germany’s new coalition government wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year to tackle both a demographic imbalance and labour shortages in key sectors that risk undermining the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
“The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy,” Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche. The coalition deal agreed on measures to make Germany a more attractive prospect to foreign workers.
Read more at Reuters
New Home Construction Is Up
Construction of new residences increased 1.4% in December, from approximately 1.67 million units at the annual rate in November to 1.70 million units, the best reading since March 2021, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Rising construction costs and other affordability issues, as well as labor shortages, hampered housing construction in 2021.
Building of single-family homes declined 2.3% in December, down to approximately 1.17 million units from approximately 1.19 million units in November. By contrast, multifamily-unit construction starts jumped 10.6%, from 479,000 units to 530,000 units, the best reading since February 2020. “The gains over the past two months are hopefully the beginning of an upward trend. On a year-over-year basis, new residential construction has risen by a modest 2.5%, driven largely by the volatile multifamily segment. Single-family housing starts have dropped 10.9% over the past 12 months, speaking to the hurdles described above,” said NAM Chief Economist Chad Moutray.
Read more at the Census Bureau
Lumber Rebound Awakens Timber Market From Long Slumber
Record lumber prices and cardboard production are starting to lift southern timber prices from their yearslong slump.
Wet weather has helped, too. A lot of woodlands are too mushy to log, putting a premium on trees that can be harvested from dry ground. Analysts, foresters and timberland owners say it is still too early to call an end to the timber bust and recovery is uneven, absent in areas far from mills. But the average price in the South for pine trees used to make lumber hasn’t been higher in more than a decade.
Saw timber rose to $26.44 a ton during the fourth quarter, according to TimberMart-South, a pricing service affiliated with the University of Georgia’s forestry school. Though saw timber prices have bounced 18% from the 50-year lows of summer 2020, they remain well below the $40-plus that big logs fetched two decades ago.
State Senate Confirms Janno Lieber to Lead MTA
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s leader Janno Lieber was confirmed last week by the State Senate as chairperson and chief executive officer of the 67,000-strong Metropolitan Transportation Authority almost six months after he first took over his role. “I’m honored to be Governor Hochul’s nominee as chair and CEO of the MTA,” Lieber said during his hours-long confirmation hearing with three state Senate committees Wednesday.
The MTA is governed by a 21-member Board. Members are nominated by the Governor, with four recommended by New York City’s mayor and one each by the county executives of Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, and Putnam counties (the members representing the latter four cast one collective vote). MTA subways, buses, and railroads provide 2.62 billion trips each year to New Yorkers the equivalent of about one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation’s rail riders. MTA bridges and tunnels carry more than 280 million vehicles a year more than any bridge and tunnel authority in the nation.
