April 20, 2021 United States: Xi Challenges U.S. Global Leadership, Warns Against Decoupling “Chinese President Xi Jinping called for greater global economic integration and warned against decoupling while calling on the U.S. and its allies to avoid “bossing others around.” “International affairs should be conducted by way of negotiations and discussions, and the future
April 19, 2021 The Euro Area Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union noted that, “the first estimate for euro area exports of goods to the rest of the world in February 2021 was €178.6 billion, a decrease of 5.5% compared with February 2020 (€188.9 bn).” In comparison to February 2020, imports from the rest
April 19, 2021 United States: Forecasters Pay Attention to Black Unemployment “To get an idea of what Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve will do next, Wall Street economists are having to try their hand at forecasting new variables -- like the Black unemployment rate. That shift in focus could itself contribute to the outcome that the
April 16, 2021 According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN), as at January 2021, there were 1,194,800 employed persons. This was 74,300 or 5.9% less than the number of persons when compared to January 2020. The unemployment rate amounted to 8.9%, which was 1.5 percentage points higher than the rate in January 2020. The
April 16, 2021 Consumer Price Index – March 2021 According to the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) the consumer price index for March 2021 was 108.3 resulting in inflation rate of 1.1%, when compared to the previous month’s deflation rate of 0.1%. STATIN noted that, “This movement represented the largest increase since the start of
April 16, 2021 For the month of March, jobless rates were lower in 20 states and unchanged in 30 states and the District of Columbia based on a report by the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS). Forty states and the District experienced jobless rate increases from last year, 10 states had little or no change.
April 15, 2021 The seasonally adjusted initial claims, advance estimate, decreased by 193,000 to 576,000, for the week ending April 10, from the prior week’s revised level, according to the U.S. Department of Labour (DOL). The prior week’s level was revised up from 744,000 to 769,000 by 25,000. In comparison to the previous week’s average, the 4-week moving average
April 14, 2021 The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) rose 0.6% for March 2021, on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS). The all-items index rose 2.6% before seasonal adjustment over the last year. The all-items less food and energy index climbed 0.3% in March. The indexes
April 12, 2021 Sales Since adjusting for seasonal variations and trading day differences but not for price changes, according to the US Census Bureau, merchant wholesalers' February 2021 revenues were $538.3 billion, down 0.8% ((±0.7%) from the revised January amount but up 6.4% (±0.9%) from the revised February 2020 level. The percent improvement from December
April 9, 2021 Jamaica’s Net International Reserves (NIR) totalled US$3,319.33 million as at March 2021, reflecting an increase of US$303.15 million relative to the US$3,016.18 million reported at the end of February 2021 (see figure 1). This change in the NIR resulted from a US$273.06 million increase in Foreign Assets which total US$4,243.53 million compared
