Firms that are borrowing on variable-rate credit to purchase inventory should be strategically considering just how much inventory they want to be holding onto should the interest rate on their debts double in the near future.

Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey for March speaks of a +73,000 month-to-month gain in total number of jobs in the land of the red maple leaf.

The three main U.S. stock market indices turned positive again during March, after dipping and diving through January and February.

As reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its latest Employment Situation report, the total number of jobs in the United States rose by +431,000 in March. While that’s a wonderfully large number, it should be noted that it’s lower than the gain in any month since September of last year. (The monthly average increase, October 2021 to February 2022, was +633,000 jobs.)

Presently, there are a lot of negative factors in play. One might easily cite the disturbing psychological and other impacts of the fighting in Ukraine; the ongoing supply shortages that are only slowly being resolved; an affordability crisis, especially for first-time buyers, in residential real estate; general price inflation that shows little sign of letting up; and central bank moves to raise interest rates.

This article is an exploration of where jobs are sprouting in the U.S. economy versus where they are withering. The analysis is carried forward by means of cluster charts comprised of two graphs each and a text box.

U.S. Permits Still Setting the Pace for Starts The average of seasonally adjusted and annualized housing starts in the United States through the first two months of 2022 has been 1.713 million units, +11.5% versus January-to-February of 2021.

Clichés are often true and it is the case that a picture can be worth a thousand words.

(1) The latest inflation figure for the United States, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is +7.9%, a several-decades high. It’s the year-over-year percentage change in February’s all-items Consumer Price Index, for all urban consumers. The core rate of inflation, which excludes price-volatile food and energy items, is +6.4% y/y. The fact everyone is being ensnared in the strong price advances is captured by the performance of the CPI subcategory, food at home, which has ballooned to +8.6% y/y.

Statistics Canada’s new Labour Force Survey report expels the bad memories from the previous month. The -200,000 net jobs figure for January was pushed aside by the +337,000 number for February.