Elgin Area Chamber Of Commerce: Home Depot Names New CEO, GDP Beats Expectations, Labor Shortage Expected To Persist

Press release from the Elgin Area Chamber of Commerce:

January 28, 2022

Home Depot Names New CEO

A Home Depot veteran plans to take the helm of the big-box retailer in March.

The Atlanta-based company is elevating Ted Decker, its chief operating officer, to CEO, replacing Craig Menear, who has been in the position since 2014. Menear will remain chairman of the board.

Decker, 58, will also join the board. He started with the company in 2000 and worked his way through roles in business development, financing and merchandising before becoming COO in October 2020.

“His ability to blend the art and science of retail is exactly what is needed in the next phase of growth for The Home Depot,” Menear said in a statement.

Home Depot’s revenue soared during the pandemic as consumers, working from home and limited in other activities, turned to do-it-yourself projects around their homes.

In response to higher online sales, the company has been shifting its distribution model around to quicken delivery times to same-day or next-day. Rival Lowe’s has been making similar moves.

GDP Beats Expectations

The U.S. economy grew at its fastest rate in more than three decades last year as the country came out of a pandemic-induced recession, beating forecasts from a range of economists who had lowered their projections for the year.

The Commerce Department reported that gross domestic product growth hit 5.7% for 2021, the fastest increase since 1984, when the country was coming out of another recession.

Since it’s an advanced estimate, the number may grow higher if previous estimates during 2021 are an indicator. GDP estimates were revised upward for the second and third quarters last year while the first quarter estimates stayed the same.

Some economists had revised their GDP projections for the year down to 5.5%. A survey late last year by Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit real estate organization Urban Land Institute, however, had economists and analysts from U.S. real estate firms projecting 5.7%.

The fourth quarter ended the year on a strong note with GDP growth at an annual rate of 6.9% compared to 2.3% in the third quarter. Economists expect growth to slow this year to about 4%.

Labor Shortage Expected To Persist

Unemployment could reach its lowest level in 70 years by the end of the year, according to a business think tank.

During a media briefing Thursday, The Conference Board projected that unemployment will drop to 3% from the current 3.9%, tightening an already tight labor market.

Gad Levanon, vice president of labor markets for The Conference Board, said the trend is that there aren’t enough young people backfilling jobs as older workers leave the workforce. And it’s particularly acute among blue-collar jobs since college educated younger people don’t “want to do the blue-collar jobs,” Lavanon said.

In November, he said that the labor shortage was a complete surprise coming out of the recession, which prompted many more people than expected to retire.

The labor force participation rate of 61.9%, which is below pre-pandemic levels, isn’t expected to move much as a result. “Think of it as a new normal,” said Dana Peterson, The Conference Board’s chief economist.

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.