The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly more than expected last week, indicating that the labor market recovery was gaining traction.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 232,000 for the week ended Feb. 19, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 235,000 applications for the latest week.
Claims had risen in the week ending Feb. 12, which economists blamed on week-to-week volatility in the data and the delayed impact of winter storms early in the month.
With a near record 10.9 million job openings at the end of December, layoffs are minimal and economists expect claims to fall back below 200,000 in the coming weeks. They were last below this level in early December.
Many Federal Reserve officials view labor market conditions as being already at or very close to maximum employment.
Claims have dropped from a record high of 6.149 million in early April 2020. The tightening labor market conditions are boosting wage growth, which is contributing to high inflation.
Rising wages and better job security should, however, help to underpin consumer spending and sustain the economic expansion even as the Fed starts raising interest rates to tamp down inflation, and government money to households and businesses dries up. The U.S. central bank is expected to start raising rates in March, with economists anticipating as many as seven hikes this year.
A separate report from the Commerce Department on Thursday confirmed that economic growth accelerated in the fourth quarter as the drag from a resurgence in COVID-19 infections over the summer, driven by the Delta variant, eased.
Gross domestic product increased at a 7.0% annualized rate last quarter, the government said in its second GDP estimate. That was slightly up from the previously reported 6.9% pace. The economy grew at a 2.3% growth pace in the third quarter.
The economic momentum, however, appeared to have faded by December amid a strong headwind from coronavirus infections fueled by the Omicron variant. But activity has since picked up as the winter wave of infections subsided.
Retail sales surged in January and business activity rebounded in February, data showed this month. That has created an upside risk to GDP growth estimates for
the first-quarter, which are mostly below a 2.0 rate. The United States is reporting an average of 80,131 new COVID-19 infections a day, sharply down from the more than 700,000 in mid-January, according to a Reuters analysis of official data.
Since Evaluna and Camilo announced that they are expecting their first baby, their fans want to know all the details of the pregnancy; For our fortune, they have allowed us to see great moments of this process on their networks.
Both have used their social networks, their public appearances and their concerts to continue wasting love as a couple and as future parents, so it has not been a secret to see how each stage has been.
It all started in mid-October when Camilo released the video for his song “Índigo”, in which it seemed like another poem dedicated to his wife, but then everything took a turn and it became known that the lyrics were dedicated to the baby on the way.
It may interest you: Evaluna revealed that she will not let her children push their faces in the birthday cake
In this, Evaluna’s already pregnant belly was seen for the first time, but it was still in its first weeks so it was not very noticeable.
Camilo and Evaluna enjoy their pregnancy in networks
Then by the end of November, the couple attended the Latin Grammy 2021 and there the growth of their belly was already more noticeable. Evaluna wore a green dress tight to the body that made it more evident.
Another tender moment was when the singer went on stage during one of the Colombian’s concerts and he sang to her and the baby in her belly.
Photo: Instagram – @evaluna
Read also: Evaluna shares an adorable video of the ‘kicks’ that her baby who is on the way gives her
But if we talk about tenderness, their social networks take the prize, because it is common for them to share photos and videos enjoying themselves with the family while they wait for Indigo’s arrival.
His birth will give a lot to talk about and they will surely have something special prepared to announce it: A song, maybe?
Do you want to see how Evaluna’s belly has grown? We invite you to play the video at the beginning of this note.
Don’t forget to follow us on our Facebook pagewhere you will find more news about your favorite celebrities.
For the past 10 years, China’s domestic policy changes have carried a growing sense of demographic urgency. A strictly enforced one-child mandate changed to a two-kids-in-some-cases option (2013), which morphed into two children for all (2016), which rolled over to the current government push for three offspring (2021).
But where are the babies? Why aren’t playgrounds as jammed as Beijing’s notorious 3rd Ring Road? The workers of tomorrow are nowhere to be found.
Despite the government’s best efforts, the data released last week by China’s National Bureau of Statistics show that in 2021 in a nation of 1.4 billion people, there was a net population growth of only 480,000 people — against 10.1 million deaths and 10.6 million births — suggesting a disconnect between China’s policy goals and its people.
FILE – Families with young children pose for photos in Beijing, Feb. 13, 2021.Struggling with an aging population and declining birth rates, China is trying to shift its population policies to avert a demographic crisis.
“Working overtime night and day and facing the ridiculous cost of goods … who wants your children to grow up in such an environment?” said a poster on Weibo, China’s microblogging platform.
“You can’t have both mortgage and formula,” another joked.
A third quipped, “Let’s guess … will this year’s Spring Festival gala be promoting the three kid policies?” The Spring Festival Gala, a TV production from the state-owned China Media Group, was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most watched TV program since 1983. And, according to state-controlled CCTV, it is an annual must-watch New Year’s Eve extravaganza of dancing, singing and comedy.
China’s birthrate has declined swiftly over the past five years, from 12.4 births for every 1,000 citizens in 2017 to 7.52 births for every 1,000 citizens in 2021, the lowest in nearly 60 years, according to statistics bureau records. The time span is significant because the Great Chinese Famine began in 1959 and ended in 1961, three years before China conducted its benchmark second census. “Some 30 million Chinese starved to death, and about the same number of births were lost or delayed,” according to an article about the famine in the National Institutes of Health archive.
Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of Big Country With an Empty Nest, told VOA Mandarin that “as China’s economic miracle has been heavily based on its inexhaustible labor force, an inflection point in its population will inevitably mean an inflection point in its economic model.”
n this June 1, 2017 photo, women walk with children wearing matching hats as they cross a bridge at a public park on International Children’s Day in Beijing.
Has population already peaked?
Although scholars have already referred to China’s demographic crisis as a ticking time bomb, China’s population may have peaked much earlier than projected given a rapidly aging population coupled with the rapidly declining birth rate, Yi said.
China’s National Population Development Plan (2016-2030) estimated that the fertility rate between 2020 and 2030 would hover around 1.8 babies per woman of childbearing age, and that the country would start to experience negative population growth in 2031. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a public policy think tank, a nation needs a fertility rate of 2.1 to maintain a stable population.
China’s true fertility rate may be lower than the official estimate, Yi said. “We will start to see the population decline in 2022, nine years earlier than expected,” he added.
Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, wrote last week on his company’s website that “the most likely scenario is that slowing productivity growth and a shrinking workforce prevent China ever passing the U.S.”
China’s seventh census, released in 2020, found that there were 880 million between the ages of 16 and 59 in the workforce, a sharp drop of more than 40 million compared with 2010 figures. You Jun, vice minister of China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said in March that China’s labor force would continue to decline, shrinking by as many as 35 million people in the next five years. In about 25 years, one-third of China’s population will be retirees, according to the 2020 census report by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
Global issue
China is not alone in facing this issue. A study published in October 2020 in The Lancet, a medical journal, warns of the “jaw-dropping” economic, social and geopolitical effects on nearly every country as fertility rates fall and populations shrink. “Our findings suggest that continued trends in female educational attainment and access to contraception will hasten declines in fertility and slow population growth,” said the authors of the study.
Thomas Duesterberg, a senior fellow who specializes in economics at the Hudson Institute, said population growth is one of the most important sources of economic growth because as the workforce declines, so does the rate of innovation.
“The innovativeness and ingenuity of human beings is reduced because a large part of the creativity of people comes in the first part of their career,” he told VOA Mandarin. “So, if you have an aging population and a declining population, you’re likely to see less of that ability to innovate, which is another key element of growth going forward.”
Ning Jizhe, head of China’s National Bureau of Statistics, acknowledged after the release of the 2020 census that “the country’s economic structure and technological development need to be adjusted and adapted” as the country’s population structure changes.
Bill Conerly, an economist and the author of The Flexible Stance: Thriving in a Boom/Bust Economy, said the declining birth rate would not have an immediate impact on China’s economy.
“A baby is a net drain on the economy for 15, 25 years and sometimes even longer. So I don’t put a lot of importance in this,” he told VOA Mandarin.
But in the long term, the declining birth rate will eventually affect the labor market. “Actually, the birth rate has been coming down for quite some time,” he said. “So maybe China’s only 10 years away from having a very tight labor market. It will eventually come.”
