Friday, September 4, 2020

Economic Recovery?

 There was a bit of positive news in the jobs report as the economy added 1.37 million jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.4%.  There are still significant unemployment claims each week and those numbers are not great but it may indicate a bit of rebound from the bottoms.

If the virus starts to rage more it could reverse again and the chances of that happening in the next few months are fairly high since the fall leads to higher infection rates in airborne diseases as people go inside.

One of the "good" things we are seeing is that companies are rethinking how to do their business.  E-trade has been a bright spot and more companies are seeing a benefit from remote or at home workers.

This could be a blow to our cities and to some extent it was probably already in process.  The idea of business is to make money and profits and the reason to accept the high cost and inconvenience of operating in a city was the talent available and the customer base.  

We already saw some erosion in those things as modern technology has enable virtual business opportunities.

Will the advantages of the cities stay high enough to justify the cost of doing business there?  That remains to be seen but the infrastructure advantages are being eroded as technology allows seamless operation from home.

Still economic trends are driven by economic forces and each business will have to decide if central office space is worth it.  It is likely it will remain to some extent but on a lower scale.  

The economy recovers but it doesn't always stay the same.  Look at the industrial mid west.

Some times it is just different.

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