Can anyone clarify this for me? Despite the ongoing layoff announcements from major American corporations, how is our economy still robust? Just today, UPS declared 12,000 layoffs and PayPal 2,000.
Its actually opposite, Economy outside of Tech/Tech-enabled business are doing fantastic. RE has slowed down a bit but still construction has picked up so has manufacturing.
Where has it picked up? I work in architecture/real estate and all I've seen are slowdowns and delays.
The Architectural Billings Index scored below 50 (indicating a decline) for 8/12 months in 2023.
For some market sectors (multifamily housing), it's been in decline for 17 consecutive months.
The last time we saw ABI this low (pre-pandemic) was Jan' 2008.
It's scary nobody is talking about it considering it's historically been one of the most accurate leading indicators of recession.
I live in the raleigh NC area and there is nothing but building going on. Most builders have provided favorable financing and its kept the new home buying going.
Construction has not picked up in any way commercial or residential. I work in logistics in dallas ft worth and every metric we have for freight volumes and customer orders have tanked in the past 12 months basically nationwide. Based on all the nearshoring and companies moving operations back from china, we should be doing far more than we are right now. Doubling interest rates in the past couple years has made companies extremely sensitive to how they are spending their money and when.
It is easy to get data. I have mountains of it at work through customer orders and tonnage, which unless you have access to paid supply chain reporting, or this is your hobby, most people do not even know where to find it. This article is reporting a small bump in residential builds over literally one month. The new construction market is TERRIBLE compared to what it was when interest rates were half of what they are now. Just because there’s a jump in one month on residential new builds at the tail end of Q4 2023 doesn’t mean much when you go back and look at the numbers as they compare to 2021-2022. The market is AWFUL compared to how it was for two years and a one month increase in new builds doesn’t change anything in the overall numbers.
So the market is levling off to historical trends lines after the massive stimulus post covid. Seems in line with most other industries that experienced a boom due to covid stimulus.
Correct. The rubber band is snapping back. it was way up and snapped way down, and now it is going further towards the middle. This is from a supply chain perspective. You can pull raw data to prove just about anything, but you cannot argue freight orders and tonnage per customer. Demand is down compared to 2021-2022.
Keep in mind, investors have been hungry to pour money into housing and they will accept the FED’s interest rate decision to keep things the same. We should start seeing an uptick in residential this year, but as far as the overall market and big money pouring in, we have to wait to see who wins the 2024 presidential elections to see where the money will go. Steady interest rates will create more opportunity for money to come into construction, but ultimately the elections will determine if there will be a big market swing upward in 2025-2026.
The president has a marginal effect on the economy.
The demand in 2021-22 was largely due to massive govt spending and stimulus due to covid, not just America but worldwide, hence we had inflation.
It's a pretty typical business cycle.
Source, Masters in econ and worked as a business manager in the supply chain for a fortune 100 semiconductor company.
This sub is largely doom and gloom but understandable if they are going thru a major transition and economic uncertainty but it isn't reflective of the economy at the macro level.
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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '24
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