U.S. Business Activity Holds Steady, but Employment Dips in November - S&P Global Report
November sees stable U.S. business activity, but job cuts emerge. Explore the economic trends affecting businesses and employment in this S&P Global report.
In November, businesses in the U.S. stayed about the same, but jobs in private companies went down for the first time in a long while. S&P Global looked at how things are going and found that the part that checks both making things and doing services stayed at 50.7. When the number is over 50, it means companies are growing.
The number for making things dropped to 49.4 this month from 50.0 in October. But the number for doing services went up a tiny bit to 50.8 from 50.6 in the month before.
People who study the economy think things will slow down a lot this three months because the government has been making it more expensive to borrow money. Since March this year, the people who decide about money in the U.S. raised the cost of borrowing by 525 points to 5.25% to 5.50%.
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From July to September, the economy grew by 4.9%. People who guess about these things say it will grow much slower, maybe below 2%, for October to December.
There was a small rise in the number of new things companies want to make in November, ending three months of it going down. The rise is mostly because companies that do services want more things, but the ones making things are staying the same.
Because companies are not getting a lot of new orders, they are letting people go from work. The number of people with jobs went down to 49.7. This is the first time this has happened since June 2020.
The people who looked at all this say companies are letting people go because not many people want to buy things, and it's costing them more money to make things. Some companies are not hiring any more people.
Sian Jones, who is an expert on the economy, says that companies are letting people go from jobs in November, not just in making things but also in doing services.
When people don't have jobs, it might mean there won't be many new jobs in the coming months. The number of people who don't have jobs went up to 3.9% in October. This is the highest it has been in almost two years.
When there aren't many jobs, it helps the government fight against prices going up. Things like energy and things to make other things have been getting cheaper, which is also helping.
Companies are also saying that the cost of getting things to make other things has gone down. This is because they don't have to pay as much for things like fuel.
Even though companies are still charging more money for the things they make, they are not raising prices as much as before.
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