Elgin Area Chamber Of Commerce: Government Jobs Report Surprises, House Passes Chip Production Funds, Trucking Firm To Build Termina

Press release from the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce:

February 07, 2022

Government Jobs Report Surprises

The government's jobs report showed a big gain in January that beat expectations and may have surprised some analysts who projected a loss after payroll company ADP reported that payrolls shrunk.

The Labor Department reported that the economy added 467,000 jobs compared to ADP’s finding of a negative 301,000. PNC had projected the government report would show a 400,000 loss in jobs while Goldman Sachs was more optimistic with projections that payrolls would fall by 250,000.

To make the reports more interesting, the Labor Department revealed its annual revisions for 2021 that showed the summer months weren’t as strong as originally reported and the later months of 2021 weren’t as strong as reported. The adjustments come after gathering more compete data.

“Non-response rates must be hammering data collection, so it's almost as if we shouldn’t pay attention until the data are a couple of months old,” Bob Mcnab, director of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy at Old Dominion University, said by email.

The revision countered the updates the government had made for the summer months that added roughly 600,000 jobs. Instead, the numbers for June and July were lowered by 807,000. But November and December were 709,000 better than originally reported. For the year, the totals were 217,000 higher than the initial report.

The revisions paint a picture of the jobs recovery through the year that may not have been as sensitive to virus spikes as originally believed.

House Passes Chip Production Funds

The House on Friday passed a bill to boost U.S. manufacturing competitiveness with China that includes money for increasing semiconductor production.

Dubbed the America Competes Act, the bill provides $52 billion for research, development and manufacturing. The bill is the House version of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act the Senate passed last June, which calls for $52 billion for CHIPS Act for America that is part of the bill.

With a chip shortage as a backdrop, President Biden has been pushing the House to pass the legislation to ensure the country relies less on foreign sources of computer chips and develop domestic resilience against disruption.

Intel Corp., Texas Instruments, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung are spending billions of dollars on new chip factories in the United States. Patrick Gelsinger, Intel’s CEO, announced the company's investment on plants in Ohio last month at the White House with Biden, saying that the company’s plans would grow larger if the legislation passed.

The two versions of the legislation now must go through a reconciliation process to iron out any differences before final passage.

Trucking Firm To Build Terminals

Less-than-truckload company Saia plans to add more trucking terminals throughout the United States and relocate others to better locations.

In its earnings call last week, Fritz Holzgrefe, CEO of the the Johns Creek, Georgia-based company, told investors Saia plans to add 10 to 15 new terminals and move roughly 10 terminals to larger or better-positioned locations.

The company added seven new facilities last year to reach 176 as part of $286 million in capital expenditures.

Saia said it had a record fourth quarter with revenue of $617 million that was 29.5% higher than the same time in 2020. Operating income rose 92.3% to $97.4 million.

Better results came even with major weather disruptions and higher fuel costs. On fuel, the expensive increased 65% while miles driven increased 6.2%.

Source: www.CoStar.com

This press release was produced by the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce. The views expressed here are the author’s own.