The pandemic jobs deficit isn’t just a big city thing, but it’s starting to look as if it may soon be mostly a big city thing bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
The U.S. unemployment rate was a seasonally adjusted 5.2% in August.
In and around the country’s biggest cities, unemployment was much higher:
🌇10.2% in New York City
🌆10.1% in Los Angeles County
🏙8% in the core of the Chicago metropolitan area bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
Big, dense cities employ lots of skilled knowledge workers.
These people have generally kept their jobs during the pandemic, but most stopped going into the office when Covid arrived, and many have yet to return bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
A National Bureau of Economic Research working paper calls this the “urban and industry bias of remote work.”
As a result of this, low-skill service workers in big cities bore most of the recent pandemic’s economic impact bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
What does the Covid-19 pandemic’s economic impact on the U.S. look like if you separate out the biggest cities?
The data that enabled such a calculation for unemployment rates through August came out. Here’s what they show: bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
There's a gap between the combined unemployment rate of the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago metropolitan areas and that of the rest of the U.S. that’s been much bigger during the pandemic than at any other time since 1990 bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
Removing those three metro areas from the picture delivers an unemployment rate of 4.9%.
That's less than the 5.3% national figure but not enough to dramatically revise the picture of the U.S. economy bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
Other big metro areas with lots of high-skill knowledge workers, such as San Francisco and Boston, don’t have unemployment rates nearly as high as New York’s or Los Angeles’s.
These areas have nonetheless seen big payroll job losses bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
These metro areas accounted for 25.1% of the job losses in the first two months of the pandemic:
🌇New York
🌆Los Angeles
🏙Chicago
🌃San Francisco
🏙Boston
🌆Washington
🌇Philadelphia
Now they’re responsible for 44.8% of the pandemic jobs deficit bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
Comparing payroll employment change since February 2020 for the seven metro areas to the rest of the country is pretty striking: bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
Nationally, payroll employment is down 3.5% since the beginning of the pandemic.
In the seven metros, employment is down 7.3% — still worse than the 6.3% national decline during the Great Recession bloom.bg/3mfV1LP
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Walk around a supermarket in the U.S. or Europe, and you will see some empty shelves once more.
Supply chains are clogged at almost every stage between Asian factories and grocery stock rooms trib.al/3tWAqxD
Rising prices and patchy availability mean it’s only a matter of time before shoppers start purchasing in bulk.
Supply lines are struggling as producers, who are responsible for making everything from sneakers to coffee, are hurt by Covid restrictions trib.al/xMk1jai
➡️ Surging virus cases and consumer demand are leading to congested ports
➡️ Shipping containers are in the wrong place
➡️ Sea freight costs are up tenfold
➡️ Shortages of workers to harvest and prepare foods are adding to the pressures trib.al/xMk1jai
As the great resignation takes hold, workers across industries are sharing stories of burnout.
U.S. labor productivity rose 2.3% in the second quarter, but evidence suggests the number went up as fewer workers did more trib.al/1ap0o3I
Most employees are working more hours each week compared to pre-pandemic times, especially in health-care and other service-oriented jobs.
Here's some advice for employees who don't have the luxury of quitting their current jobs trib.al/1ap0o3I
Start by talking to your employer.
Come to the conversation armed with explanations of how better conditions such as time off or increased compensation are likely to result in increasing performance or employee retention trib.al/1ap0o3I
Eighteen months into the pandemic, we’re entering a new phase. While we have better Covid protection from vaccines and natural antibodies, we’re also returning to high risk environments like night clubs and offices.
New York is emerging as one of the world's most resilient cities in the wake of the pandemic.
Its success is more than just its size — it’s the Big Apple’s model of urbanism that offers something no other American metropolis can match trib.al/0SEiY77
New York was the first big city in the U.S. to be hit hard by Covid-19.
Immediately, people began predicting the pandemic would trigger a backlash against dense urban living. A wave of murder and violence followed the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests trib.al/0SEiY77
For some cities like San Francisco, the exodus seems real.
But more people moved to the New York City metropolitan area during the Covid pandemic than moved out, according to an analysis of cell phone data.
Young people are especially eager to move in trib.al/0SEiY77
With millions of kids going back to school in September, their movements are frequently tracked by parents.
The idea of digitally surveilling kids is a tricky one. Keen parents seem largely oblivious to the institutional concerns about the practice trib.al/h0I0qfW
.@parmy talked with about a dozen British parents sending their 11-year-olds to secondary school with phones.
About three-quarters said they would monitor their child’s movements through an app of some sort, largely for safety reasons trib.al/SOm7D7w
Various institutions aren’t fans of parents tracking their kids' phones.
Ireland’s data protection regulator says in its draft guidance that geolocation tracking should be turned off “by default for child users” trib.al/SOm7D7w
The world’s largest battery manufacturer — China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology — has officially unveiled a sodium-ion battery.
This technology could lead to widespread adoption in a market largely dependent on subsidies trib.al/vdv96sd
Sodium-ion batteries currently have a relatively lower energy density, but they run better at cooler temperatures and have a greater life span.
This makes them a better long-term investment trib.al/vdv96sd
China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it would drive the development, standardization and commercialization of sodium-ion batteries.
This would provide a cheaper, faster-charging and safe alternative to the current crop on offer trib.al/vdv96sd