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Southeast Rural Manufacturing: A Rural-Urban Divide

The FED Said The latest U.S. jobs reports shows that employment growth remains strong in the United States, helping push the unemployment rate to its lowest level in nearly 50 years. Although employment growth in the Southeast generally mirrors national trends, a look below the hood shows that the jobs recovery from the Great Recession has been […] Read more

Beige Book – October 2018

The FED Said Overall U.S. Economic Activity Economic activity expanded across the United States, with the majority of Federal Reserve Districts reporting modest to moderate growth. New York and St. Louis indicated slight growth, overall, while Dallas reported robust growth driven by strong manufacturing, retail, and nonfinancial services activity. On balance, manufacturers reported moderate output […] Read more

Regional Contacts: Firms Report Rising Costs

The FED Said Businesses across the Southeast are reporting rising nonlabor costs, and the most recent surveys show that firms expect their input costs to increase more quickly over the next year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s new Beige Book report on regional economic conditions. Unit costs in September were up 2 percent over […] Read more

Report on Disaster-Affected Firms

The FED Said 2017 Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Disaster-Affected Firms Forty percent of firms in FEMA-designated disaster areas reported losses from recent storms. We examine which firms were hit hardest and how heavily they depend on aid and credit to get back in business. The Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS), an annual survey […] Read more

Are EU Markets More Competitive than Those in the U.S.?

The FED Said (actually this was from a Fed link to the NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH) Since 2000, gross profit rates in the United States have risen and industry concentration has soared, but these trends are not found in the European Union. Until the late 1990s, most U.S. markets were viewed as highly competitive […] Read more

Why NAFTA Matters

The FED Said The stakes are high for the Southeast as the United States tries to work out new trade agreements with Mexico and Canada. The talks are intended to update the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the treaty between Mexico, Canada, and the United States that took effect in 1994. The United States […] Read more

Beige Book

The FED Said Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Summary of Economic Activity Sixth District business contacts indicated that economic activity expanded at a moderate pace since the previous report. On balance, the outlook among firms for the remainder of the year was positive, despite some uncertainty surrounding trade policy. Firms continued to cite hiring challenges, […] Read more

Firms Struggling to Find Hourly Workers

The FED Said As businesses in the Southeast struggle to fill low-skill jobs, some firms say they plan to move to places with larger pools of available workers, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s new Beige Book report on regional economic conditions. Atlanta Fed business contacts report that overall economic activity continued to expand moderately […] Read more

Residential Real Estate: A Southeast Update

The FED Said Job creation—particularly in major cities—is one of the biggest drivers of residential real estate, attracting individuals and families to a new area. Over the past seven years, the United States has created an average of 200,000 new jobs a month. During that same time, the states in the Atlanta Fed’s district—Alabama, Florida, […] Read more

So Close, Yet So Far?  (Cuba)

The FED Said Recent steps to scale back U.S.-Cuba ties have dampened U.S. travel and business interest in the island nation, two American entrepreneurs in the country told a forum at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. “The word of the day in Cuba right now is uncertainty,” said Collin Laverty, who operates an educational […] Read more

Are Tariff Worries Cutting into Business Investment?

The FED Said “Nobody’s model does a very good job of how uncertainty and hits to confidence affect behavior,” says Deutsche Bank’s Peter Hooper in a recent Wall Street Journalarticle. Count us as sympathetic to his viewpoint. That’s one reason why a few of us at the Atlanta Fed created a national survey of firms in […] Read more

7 Skills That Aren’t About to Be Automated

From the Harvard Business Review Today’s young professionals grew up in an age of mind-boggling technological change, seeing the growth of the internet, the invention of the smartphone, and the development of machine-learning systems. These advances all point toward the total automation of our lives, including the way we work and do business. It’s no […] Read more

Learning about an ML-Driven Economy

The FED Said (Federal Reserve System) Developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have drawn considerable attention from both the real and financial sides of the economy. The Atlanta Fed’s recent Financial Markets Conference, Machines Learning Finance: Will They Change the Game?, explored the implications of AI/ML for the financial system and public policy. […] Read more

Some Industries Encountering Worker Shortages

The FED Said (Federal Reserve System) With U.S. unemployment down to levels not seen since 2000, job seekers are gaining the upper hand in the labor market as employers struggle to fill positions across skill levels. Such hiring difficulties are prompting some employers across the Southeast to raise pay. “We’ve been hearing that wage pressure […] Read more