Americans are apparently getting lazier—at least according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In its American Time Use Survey, released this past week, the BLS found that Americans working full time from home—33% in 2022, up from 25% in 2019—put in 2.5 hours fewer a day than their colleagues at the office. “It’s no wonder labor force productivity has been negative for the past five straight quarters amid office occupancy that remains at sub-50% in the largest U.S. cities,” writes DataTrek Research co-founder Nicholas Colas.
Overall, the U.S. civilian population worked an average of 3.23 hours a day in 2022, down from 3.26 hours a day in 2019. (That seemingly low number is for the total population, including nonworkers like babies.) Labor productivity is the engine for gains in economic output. Living standards are driven by more output per worker.
The BLS findings will undoubtedly provide companies an argument for bringing workers back to the office.
Tesla
CEO Elon Musk recently called coming to work a “moral issue.” Musk’s point is that assembly-line workers can’t work from home, and so engineers, designers, and support staff shouldn’t be able to unless there’s a very good reason.
Given these numbers, returning to work would provide considerable economic stimulus. If workers fill up offices at a 2019 rate and work 8.2 hours a day instead of the at-home 5.7 hours, the economy would add roughly 800 million weeks of work, an 8% bump. Of course, maybe they should do so anyway to protect their jobs from hardworking AI chatbots.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
Last Week
A Bullish First Half
Stocks fell to start the week, but advanced as Case-Shiller home prices fell 0.2% in April, new-home sales and durable orders rose, and consumer confidence hit a 17-month high. A Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. was pondering export curbs on artificial-intelligence chips to China dampened the rally, but stocks rose on lower inflation and weak consumer spending. On the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2% to 34,407.60; the S&P 500 was up 2.4% to 4450.38; and the Nasdaq Composite ticked up 2.2% to 13,787.92, its best first half, at 31.73%, since 1983.
Central Banker Consensus
Top central bankers met in Sintra, Portugal, mostly calling for higher interest rates to quell persistent inflation, despite the risk of financial instability. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell summed it up: “Although policy is restrictive, it’s not restrictive enough.”
Internet for All
The White House launched its $42 billion effort to provide high-speed internet to all Americans—part of a larger effort to sell President Biden’s economic agenda. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in higher education and tossed out Biden’s student-loan relief plan.
Mutiny and Fallout
After sending his Wagner Group forces north toward Moscow, Yevgeny Prigozhin agreed to a deal with Russian President Putin brokered by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko: Go into exile in Belarus, disband Wagner, and be cleared of treason charges. The deal left many questions unanswered: What would happen to Prigozhin, his paramilitary force, and Putin’s regime? Prigozhin flew to Belarus as Putin began targeting his allies, including detaining Gen. Sergei Surovikin.
The Corporate Front
Robinhood Markets
said it was laying off 7% of its workforce—about 150 people—while KPMG trimmed 5% of its U.S. employees,
Goldman Sachs
125 managing directors, and
Ford Motor
1,000 salaried workers…All 23 big banks passed Federal Reserve stress tests, allowing them to increase buybacks and dividends…
Micron Technology
unexpectedly beat on earnings…On Friday,
Apple
hit $3 trillion in market cap.
Annals of Deal Making
IBM
announced it was buying software company Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for $4.6 billon in cash. Vista took Apptio private in 2018 for $1.9 billion…Logistics real estate giant
Prologis
bought a portfolio of industrial assets from Blackstone for $3.1 billion…
UnitedHealth’s
Optum unit agreed to buy home healthcare provider
Amedisys
for $3.29 billion…
Lordstown Motors
filed for Chapter 11 and sued
Foxconn Technology Group,
which had agreed in November to buy the electric-truck maker’s former General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and make its Endurance truck for $170 million…
Microsoft
and
Activision Blizzard
tried to save their merger in federal court, where the Federal Trade Commission is seeking an injunction to stop the deal from closing.
Write to Robert Teitelman at [email protected]
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