Here’s what you need to know:
- New jobs data is expected to show gains for June, but continuing worries.
- Global markets rise on hopes of strong jobs gains.
- Fraudulent jobless claims slow relief to the truly desperate.
- How infrared images could be part of your daily life.
- McDonald’s will delay reopening its dining rooms as coronavirus cases rise.
New jobs data is expected to show gains for June, but continuing worries.
Thursday will bring a double dose of data about the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on American jobs. But the numbers are arriving just as new clouds seems to be gathering.
The Labor Department’s employment report for June, to be released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern, is expected to show that the economy added three million jobs last month, according to an average of forecasts compiled by the data provider FactSet.
That would be the second straight monthly gain after a catastrophic loss of more than 20 million jobs in April, when the pandemic put much economic activity on ice.
But the survey was compiled in mid-June, before coronavirus cases began to surge in Arizona, Florida and several other states. More timely data that the Labor Department will also release Thursday morning is expected to show that 1.3 million workers filed new claims for state unemployment benefits last week, according to FactSet.
Economists fear that layoffs could accelerate now that California, Texas and other states have begun ordering some businesses to close again.
“The virus drives the economics,” said Betsey Stevenson, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under former President Barack Obama who is now at the University of Michigan. If cases continue to rise as health officials warn, she said, “we’re not going to have people going back to work. In fact, we’re going to see more people staying home.” — Ben Casselman and Nelson D. Schwartz
Global markets rise on hopes of strong jobs gains.
U.S. stock futures followed global markets higher on Thursday as investors awaited jobs data from the United States and were cheered by some positive news on the coronavirus vaccine front.
Futures markets predicted Wall Street would rise nearly 1 percent when trading starts. Major European indexes were 1 to 2 percent higher, after Asian indexes ended the trading session on a positive note.
Other markets were more mixed. Oil prices were rising, but the 10-year U.S. Treasury note was slightly higher, suggesting that investors are still seeking safe bets. Gold was slightly higher.
The U.S. government is expected to announce on Thursday that employers added as many as three million workers to payrolls in June, continuing an upswing that started in May as the American economy started coming out of lockdown. But coronavirus cases are spiking in the United States, with a daily record in reported cases on Wednesday. As state governments order restaurants and bars to pull back from reopening plans, data suggest a dampening in the rehiring trend.
Investors were continuing to pay attention to an announcement on Wednesday by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, which found in preliminary test data that a coronavirus vaccine had shown potential and was found to be well tolerated in early human trials. Around the world, 19 vaccines are in human trials.
Fraudulent jobless claims slow relief to the truly desperate.
When Alexandria Preston had to leave her job as a medical assistant to care for her two children during the pandemic, she didn’t encounter endless delays like so many others trying to get unemployment benefits.
But three weeks later, the payments stopped coming. Then her account was canceled. Her claim had been flagged with the date 9/9/9999 — an indication that it was being reviewed for identity fraud, a vexing problem for a strained unemployment system that has delayed payments to hundreds of thousands of jobless people.
“It was two weeks of not knowing anything and not getting any answers,” said Ms. Preston, who lives in Bangor, Maine.
More than 40 million workers have filed for unemployment benefits since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic — over seven times as many requests as all of 2019. And the volume of claims has been convenient cover for identity thieves filing bogus applications that could cost billions of dollars.
“Fraudsters have been able to hide in the flood of data,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a public interest research group. “It is a perfect storm of identity fraud. Anyone who has experienced a major breach in the past three or four years could fall victim to this.” — Tara Siegel Bernard
How infrared images could be part of your daily life.
As the country reopens, you might start seeing more real-time heat maps that could find sick people, before they know they are sick. And in a post-quarantine world, you might start having your temperature taken. A lot.
A fever is one indicator that someone may be exhibiting coronavirus symptoms, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends temperature screenings in a variety of environments, including schools and businesses.
As shelter-in-place restrictions vary across many cities and counties around the country, officials have begun buying technology like infrared cameras in the hopes of helping track and contain the spread of the outbreak.
When the pandemic took hold, Jonah M. Kessel, a video journalist at The New York Times started seeing more and more companies like Amazon using this technology to help identify sick people in their warehouses. Thermal imaging cameras are beginning to appear in Subway restaurants. Carnival Cruise Lines, whose ships became hot spots for the virus’s spread, said all passengers and crew would be screened when it began sailing again.
The rapid adoption of infrared technology had him wondering how helpful it could be. With a temperature-reading infrared camera, he hit the streets of Maplewood, N.J., last week, wanting to understand where the camera succeeds and where the challenges are in capturing accurate temperature readings. — Jonah M. Kessel
McDonald’s will delay reopening its dining rooms as coronavirus cases rise.
McDonald’s is pausing its plans to resume dine-in service at thousands of locations across the United States amid a surge in coronavirus infections.
The pause, announced on Wednesday, will last for three weeks. Dining rooms are already open at about 2,200 McDonald’s restaurants, of about 14,000 locations nationwide, and may remain open if local rules allow, the company said in a note to U.S. franchisees and employees.
“This surge shows nobody is exempt from this virus — even places that previously had very few cases,” McDonald’s president, Joe Erlinger, and Mark Salebra, the head of a group representing several thousand franchisees, wrote in the letter. “Moving forward, we will continue to monitor the situation and adjust as needed to protect the safety of our employees and customers.”
The pair said that given the surge in cases, all McDonald’s restaurants should continue to follow safety precautions employed throughout the pandemic, including wellness and temperature checks, the use of masks and gloves, thorough cleaning, enforcing social distancing and contactless service where possible.
Many states, including New Jersey, and cities, such as New York, do not allow indoor dining at restaurants. McDonald’s deferred to its franchisees, who own 95 percent of all locations, on the decision to reopen dine-in service if local rules allow. — Niraj Chokshi
Catch up: Here’s what else is happening.
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Apple said it would close 30 more of its stores in seven states, including California, Georgia and Nevada, adding to the 16 stores already closed around the country. Apple has 271 stores in the United States.
Reporting was contributed by Ben Casselman, Nelson D. Schwartz, Tara Siegel Bernard, Jonah M. Kessel, Matt Phillips, Mohammed Hadi, Niraj Chokshi and Jack Nicas.
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July 02, 2020 at 06:42PM
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New Jobs Data Expected to Show Gains, but Worries Continue: Live Updates - The New York Times
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