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Discussion Paper
February Regional Business Surveys Find Widespread Supply Disruptions
Business activity increased in the region’s manufacturing sector in recent weeks but continued to decline in the region’s service sector, continuing a divergent trend seen over the past several months, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s February regional business surveys. Looking ahead, however, businesses expressed widespread optimism about the near-term outlook, with service firms increasingly confident that the business climate will be better in six months. The surveys also found that supply disruptions were widespread, with manufacturing firms reporting longer ...
Discussion Paper
April Regional Service-Sector Survey Points to A Long-Awaited Rebound
While the manufacturing sector typically drives recessions and recoveries more than the service sector, the opposite has been true during the pandemic recession. Finally this month, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s April business surveys point to a solid increase in service sector activity as well as continued strength in manufacturing activity in the New York-Northern New Jersey region, marking the first signs of widespread growth since the pandemic began. While manufacturing activity had been increasing through much of the pandemic, service sector activity had declined for thirteen ...
Discussion Paper
Firms' Employment and Wage Outlook Going Into 2025
Every November, the Richmond Fed asks businesses a series of questions about their expectations for hiring, wage adjustments, and other employment-related topics. This year, in addition to the usual set of questions, we asked firms if they have reduced the size of their workforce over the past three months and what workforce decisions they would make if business conditions deteriorated in the next six months.Consistent with past results, most responding businesses expect to maintain or increase employee headcount over the next 12 months. However, there were some shifts in responses compared ...
Discussion Paper
AI and the Labor Market: Will Firms Hire, Fire, or Retrain?
The rapid rise in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to dramatically change the labor market, and indeed possibly even the nature of work itself. However, how firms are adjusting their workforces to accommodate this emerging technology is not yet clear. Our August regional business surveys asked manufacturing and service firms special topical questions about their use of AI, and how it is changing their workforces. Most firms that report expected AI use in the next six months plan to retrain their workforces, with far fewer reporting adjustments to planned headcounts.
Discussion Paper
The Omicron Wave Stalled Growth and Led to High Absenteeism in the Region
Even before the start of the new year, businesses in the tri-state region were hampered by supply disruptions, rising input costs, and difficulty finding adequate staff. On top of these challenges, the Omicron wave dealt another setback to the regional economy. With infections running high, many businesses were forced to deal with a combination of reduced demand from customers and renewed absenteeism among workers. Indeed, our regional business surveys indicate that economic growth stalled in early 2022 as firms continued to struggle to find workers. Moreover, employee absenteeism was ...
Discussion Paper
New York Fed Surveys: Business Activity in the Region Sees Historic Plunge in April
Indicators of regional business activity plunged to historic lows in early April, as efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus kept many people at home and shut down large parts of the regional economy, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s two business surveys. The headline index for both surveys plummeted to nearly -80, well below any historical precedent including the depths of the Great Recession. About 60 percent of service firms and more than half of manufacturers reported at least a partial shutdown of their operations thus far. Layoffs were widespread, with half of ...
Discussion Paper
Fifth District Firms Are Optimistic Going Into 2025
Around the start of the new year, the Richmond Fed adds questions to its monthly business surveys to gauge Fifth District firms' expectations for their business and for the U.S. economy in the upcoming year. In the previous two years, firms were cautious in their expectations, with about half of firms optimistic while one in five firms were pessimistic about the coming year. (For previous analyses, follow these links for the 2023 outlook and the 2024 outlook.) This made sense as the past two years experienced residual effects from the COVID-19 pandemic, decades-high inflation, and an ...
Discussion Paper
Businesses in the Tri-State Region Struggling to Weather the Coronavirus Outbreak
As a result of the coronavirus outbreak, New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut have closed nonessential businesses and schools and asked residents to stay home in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. These actions are unprecedented, and the economic impacts are likely to be temporary but severe, and difficult to track and measure. With conditions changing so rapidly, timely data on the economic impacts of the outbreak and resultant policies on businesses and people are both scarce and important. In this post, we provide some very recent information on the economic effects of the ...
Discussion Paper
The Price of Tariffs on Fifth District Businesses
December data from our monthly business surveys and fourth quarter data from The CFO Survey suggested that firms were optimistic about their own businesses and the overall economy going into 2025. This rise in optimism, however, was accompanied by several concerns. One concern was the potential for additional tariffs on imports.One way to gauge the potential impact of tariffs on firms — especially in December before there were more specifics about future tariff policy — was to gauge their international exposure. Most December survey respondents reported that they do not sell goods or ...