Archives for February 2021

Nationals add backup catcher Avila on $1.5M, 1-year deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alex Avila finalized a $1.5 million, one-year contract Wednesday with the Washington Nationals, who are expected to use him as the primary backup to starting catcher Yan Gomes.

Avila, who turned 34 last week, was a free agent after playing in 2020 for the Minnesota Twins, batting .184 in 49 at-bats during the coronavirus-shortened season. His deal calls for a $500,000 signing bonus that is protected against a shortened season and a $1 million guaranteed salary.

While he hasn’t had any detailed discussions about his role with manager Dave Martinez or GM Mike Rizzo, Avila said: “Whenever Davey needs me in the lineup, I’ll be ready to go.”

He has played 12 years in the majors for five clubs and has a .235 career batting average with a .348 on-base percentage, 104 homers and 388 RBIs.

“I don’t think I’m going to be hitting fourth for this team,” joked Avila, who has thrown out 14 of 32 runners trying to steal over the past two seasons.

He has caught current Nationals starters Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin and Jon Lester in previous stops. Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young Award winner, was the first new-slash-old teammate to text Avila after he agreed to go to Washington.

Avila said Scherzer wrote: “You get on, I’ll drive you in.”

“It’ll be a lot of fun catching Max again,” Avila said. “He was always one of my favorite guys to catch.”

His father, Al, is general manager of the Detroit Tigers, and the younger Avila said he entertained the thought of returning to that team.

“One day that will happen,” Alex Avila said.

His addition was the latest in a flurry of moves by Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo after the team tied for last place in the NL East.

Washington has brought in lefty starter Lester, lefty reliever Brad Hand, first baseman Josh Bell and left fielder Kyle Schwarber, and re-signed first baseman Ryan Zimmerman after he sat out 2020.

Note: Washington agreed on a minor league deal to bring back outfielder Gerardo Parra of “Baby Shark” fame. After being a part of the Nationals’ 2019 World Series championship, Parra went to play in Japan in 2020.

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Why US hiring could rebound faster than you might expect

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hiring has weakened for six straight months. Nearly 10 million jobs remain lost since the coronavirus struck. And this week, the Congressional Budget Office forecast that employment won’t regain its pre-pandemic level until 2024.

And yet a hopeful view is gaining steam that as vaccinations reach a critical mass, perhaps around midyear, and the government provides further stimulus, the economy and the job market will strengthen much faster than they did after previous recessions.

“I am not often optimistic,” said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “But I am optimistic now.”

The brighter outlook rests on three premises. The first is that household finances, as a whole, are much healthier now, with less debt and more savings, than after the Great Recession a decade ago. Once the virus is contained, that cushion of cash could drive pent-up consumer spending. That spending, in turn, would support faster hiring.

The second premise is that the pandemic recession has yet to inflict the type of structural damage to higher-paying sectors of the job market that the Great Recession did. In 2008-2009, 4 million construction and manufacturing jobs — many of them highly skilled, well-paying positions — were lost and never fully recovered. Both those sectors still have fewer jobs than they did in late 2007.

And the third dynamic is that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department appear more intent on spurring job growth and less concerned about igniting inflation or increasing budget deficits than they were a decade ago. Most policymakers and economists now believe one reason the last recovery was so slow and prolonged was that the government provided too little stimulus.

For now, the economy’s rebound has been highly unequal. The unemployment rate for the poorest one-quarter of Americans is roughly four times the rate of the richest one-quarter, Lael Brainard, a Fed governor, said in a recent speech. People of color have been disproportionately hurt by the job losses. And in December, the unemployment rate for women rose for the first time since April, even as it it fell for men. In addition, many women, especially working mothers, have had to leave the workforce to care for children and aren’t even counted as unemployed.

Yet one consequence of that inequality is that tens of millions of Americans, especially higher-income people, have managed to keep their jobs while working from home. Having spent less, they have built up savings. Once the virus is controlled, many of them will be poised to spend and boost the economy.

“A lot of people have been hit very hard, but there’s also a huge swath that hasn’t been hit,” said Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute. “They’ll be able to get right out and engage in normal economic activity. That is very different from the last recession.”

Consider that the value of Americans’ homes shrank by $5.6 trillion during and after the Great Recession, a grueling decline that dragged on until 2012 and left millions poorer. That huge loss of one-quarter of home equity — for most Americans, their main source of wealth — put a brake on consumer spending.

This time, despite a deep recession, home values for the nation as whole have actually risen $1.3 trillion, or about 4%. The stock market has also soared since April, benefiting mainly a narrow affluent slice of the population but also boosting retirement accounts. On top of that, household savings have doubled since the pandemic, to $2.3 trillion.

The prospect of a robust rebound in consumer spending has led economists to upgrade their outlooks. Goldman Sachs forecasts 6.6% growth this year, which would be the fastest since the 1984. Goldman assumes that roughly $1 trillion, out of President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion financial aid proposal, becomes law.

Unemployment would fall from the current 6.7% to to 4.5% by year’s end, Goldman projects. By contrast, after the Great Recession, unemployment exceeded 8% until August 2012 — three years after the recession had officially ended. (The CBO’s dimmer outlook assumes that no further government support will be approved.)

There is less certainty about how badly the job market has been damaged by permanent losses at restaurants, airlines, hotels and related sectors. Economists refer to such losses as “scarring,” and it can burden the unemployed for years. They often have to learn entirely new skills and search for work without the benefit of the social networks they developed in their old jobs. A significant portion of Americans who were permanently laid off after the Great Recession ended up taking lower-paying jobs with fewer benefits.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has spotlighted this potential threat as one that the Fed is monitoring. Asked at a news conference last week whether widespread scarring has occurred this time, Powell said the “jury is out.” But he added: “We haven’t seen as much of it as we as we feared. And that’s a good thing.”

At the same time, he warned that some portion of the jobless won’t return to their old jobs.

“It’s not easy to change careers completely mid-career,” Powell noted. “That just again stresses the urgency that we feel and others feel at fully defeating the pandemic.”

During the last recession, construction jobs disappeared because builders had significantly overbuilt new homes. Even as the economy recovered, fewer construction workers were needed. Manufacturing shed jobs because of low-cost international competition and automation.

This time, while restaurants, hotels, bars and entertainment venues have shed millions of jobs, it’s not yet clear how many have vanished because of permanent changes. Still, some analysts worry that the proportion of the unemployed who will have no job to return to may be substantial.

“A bunch of jobs won’t come back,” said David Autor, a labor economist at MIT.

Autor’s research has found that in recent decades, the U.S. economy has suffered a “hollowing out” of middle-class jobs, especially in manufacturing and office work, as routine jobs are increasingly performed by machines or software. Now, he worries that major sources of lower-paid jobs in many cities — restaurants, coffee shops, gyms, dry cleaning, hotels — will need fewer employees as working from home enables more Americans to leave big cities and business travel never fully recovers.

So far, at least, research suggests that the job market’s scarring has been limited. Eliza Forsythe, a labor economist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and three colleagues who studied unemployed workers and online job openings found that mismatch — the difference between the skills that employers want and the skills job-seekers have — has actually declined during the pandemic.

That’s mainly because companies have been slow to post openings for higher-skilled, higher-paying jobs. Even though more professionals are working from home, their employers aren’t looking to increase the hiring of remote workers, Forsythe said.

The data also suggests that this time, companies aren’t automating large numbers of low- or middle-skilled jobs.

“The people looking for jobs do have the skills employers are looking for,” Forsythe said. “It’s just that employers aren’t looking for enough of them right now.”

Threats from automation can be exaggerated. After the last recession, worries abounded that self-driving technology would eliminate huge numbers of taxi- and truck-driving jobs. And the use of robots in ecommerce warehouses has long sparked concerns about job losses in that sector. Yet warehousing and delivery jobs have accelerated since the recession began and have surpassed their pre-pandemic levels.

“We won’t have robot waiters when we go back to eat out,” Forsythe added. “Those people will be hired back.”

No matter the depth of scarring in the job market, policymakers and economists stress that more robust financial support from Congress and the Fed can help the long-term unemployed find work. Businesses have more incentive to train new workers if the economy is thriving. Workers can afford to take classes if they aren’t worried about being evicted from their homes. If Congress were to enact far less stimulus than the Biden administration is proposing, the job market might not rebound as vigorously as economists expect.

“I think there is a consensus that without further action, we risk a longer, more painful recession now, and longer-term scarring of the economy later,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at her Senate confirmation hearing last month.

That consensus marks a significant change from the aftermath of the last recession, said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at Upwork.

A decade ago, millions of Americans had stopped looking for work. Economists and policymakers assumed many would never return. The loss of many blue collar jobs, even as hiring in software, information technology and the health care industries grew, was seen as creating so-called skills gaps that government stimulus could do little to address.

“There was an excess focus on concepts like the skills gap and structural change that were largely misplaced even then,” Ozimek said. “People have learned from that.”

Indeed, Powell has acknowledged that the Fed has learned those lessons. He oversaw a shift in the Fed’s policy framework last year under which it plans to keep interest rates ultra-low even as the economy fully recovers. The Fed will no longer raise borrowing costs in anticipation of high inflation; rather, it will wait for annual inflation to exceed 2% for some time before it considers a rate hike.

“I’m much more worried about falling short of a complete recovery and losing people’s careers and lives that they built because they don’t get back to work in time,” Powell said last week. “I’m more concerned about that than about the possibility — which exists — of higher inflation.”

Ontario to reopen schools for in-class learning

TORONTO (AP) — Canada’s most populous province of Ontario announced Wednesday it will reopen all schools for in-class learning this month despite the presence of new coronavirus variants and a high number of infections in Toronto and its suburbs.

The majority of schools will reopen Monday while those in Toronto and its suburbs will resume in-person learning on Feb 16. There are no plans to vaccinate teachers.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce said returning kids to school safely is crucial for their development.

“Kids need to be in school for their mental health,” Lecce said. He said he is consulting with local public health officials about the reopening.

The provincial government isn’t doing widespread asymptomatic testing, but targeted asymptomatic voluntary testing in certain areas when requested. The federal government provided the provinces with millions of tests but they have not been used.

All students in Ontario began January with online learning as part of a provincial lockdown.

The number of cases in Ontario are not lower now than when they closed schools. Ontario is reporting 1,172 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, but officials noted that updates to the provincial case-management system are causing data fluctuations and the actual number is higher.

Despite the underreported numbers, Dr. David Williams, the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, used them as justification for reopening in his comments alongside Lecce.

“If they are using heavily underreported numbers as a justification I obviously have serious concerns. Amongst other things it is disingenuous. I understand politics, but it’s irresponsible to use knowingly false numbers as a justification to open up,” said Dr. Andrew Morris, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Toronto and the medical director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at Sinai-University Health Network.

“We are not where he said we are. In my mind we are unquestionably remaining at a dangerously high number of cases,” he said.

Morris said it’s not poor communication. “This is misinformation,” he said. “He really should correct the record. He either misunderstands the numbers or he is knowingly spreading misinformation, one or the other.”

Morris also said the Ontario government is using local public health officials as cover for not having any metrics for opening.

Health officials said both the UK and South African variants are present in Ontario. More than half the residents, 66 out of 129, in a long term home in Barrie, Ontario have died after the UK variant spread throughout that home.

Update on the latest in business:

FINANCIAL MARKETS

Stocks edge higher

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks have moved slightly higher on Wall Street as investors turn their focus to some strong earnings reports from Big Tech companies and hopes for getting more economic stimulus passed in Washington. Investors also continue to watch shares of companies such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment, which have been targets of a community of online investors. The S&P 500 was up 0.2% in afternoon trading. Investors also had two positive economic reports to work through, one showing private sector hiring was better than expected and that service sector activity was also better than forecasts.

ECONOMY-SERVICES

Service sector operates at highest level in almost two years

WASHINGTON (AP) — The services sector, where most Americans work, operated in January at the highest level in almost two years. The Institute for Supply Management reports that activity in the services sector climbed to a reading of 58.7% in January on a seasonally adjusted basis, up a full percentage point from the December reading of 57.7%. This was the highest reading since February 2019 when the index was at 58.8%. The January performance represented the eighth straight month of growth after sharp declines last spring when the economy was leveled by a global pandemic.

BIDEN-ECONOMY

Biden shows flexibility but tells House to ‘go big’ on aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is telling House Democrats he’s not married to all the specifics of the $1.9 trillion COVID rescue plan. But he wants them to “go big” and not let the size or scope shrink. Biden delivered private remarks to the Democratic caucus on Wednesday, before a meeting with Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and top senators at the White House. Biden says his proposed $1,400 direct payments to Americans must stay in the bill. Biden has panned a slimmer Republican alternative as insufficient. He’s told Democrats he’s “got your backs” as Congress prepares for votes on the sweeping deal.

WORLD COURT-IRAN-US

UN court says it can hear case brought by Iran against US

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The United Nations’ highest court has ruled that it can hear a case brought by Iran against the United States in a bid to end sanctions re-imposed by the Trump administration in 2018 after pulling out of an international deal aimed at curtailing Tehran’s nuclear program. Lawyers for the United States had argued that the case should be thrown out by the International Court of Justice for lack of jurisdiction and admissibility. However, the court’s president, Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, said Wednesday that judges rejected U.S. arguments. Iran filed the case in July 2018 a few months after then-President Donald Trump said he was pulling the U.S. out of a 2015 international agreement over Iran’s nuclear program and would re-impose sanctions on Tehran.

ANHEUSER-BUSCH-INVESTMENT

Anheuser-Busch investing $1B to modernize US facilities

UNDATED (AP) — Anheuser-Busch says it’s investing $1 billion over the next two years to modernize its U.S. facilities. Nearly half that amount will go to the company’s 12 major U.S. breweries. Anheuser-Busch said it will spend $100 million for new can lines and $100 million on solar panel installation and other sustainability measures. It also plans to spend $50 million to increase its seltzer brewing capabilities. U.S. sales of hard seltzers like White Claw and Bon Viv __ which is made by Anheuser-Busch __ have grown rapidly in recent years even as beer sales have declined.

DIAGEO-BLACK COLLEGES

Beer and spirits maker Diageo gives $10M to Black colleges

NEW YORK (AP) — British-based beer and spirits maker Diageo (dee-AH’-jee-oh) is giving a combined $10 million to 25 historically Black colleges and universities across the United States, continuing an upswell of giving to the institutions following last summer’s racial justice protests. The money will create endowments to help colleges financially assist students. Diageo makes Guinness beer, Johnnie Walker whiskies and Smirnoff vodka among other brands. The company says it will also create innovation hubs at some of the colleges, providing students with experience, mentorships, guest lecturers and helping faculty developing curriculum. Locations for the hubs will be announced later.

DAIMLER-CHANGES

Automaker Daimler to spin off trucks business, change name

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Germany’s Daimler is splitting in two. The maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury cars will spin off its truck and bus division, which makes Freightliner trucks and Thomas Build buses. The goal is to make both independent companies more nimble so they can move ahead faster with new technology such as zero-emission vehicles and software, two trends that are disrupting the industry. Shares in the truck and bus company will go to existing shareholders. The company says it makes sense because the two businesses have different needs. One result: Daimler will rename itself as simply Mercedes-Benz.

DAVOS FORUM-SINGAPORE

Davos event pushed back to August over COVID-related havoc

GENEVA (AP) — Leaders of the World Economic Forum say their annual gathering — usually held in the Alpine snows of Davos, Switzerland — is being postponed again because of “the international challenges in containing the pandemic.” The forum, which staged a virtual “Davos Agenda” meeting last month, says the in-person event this year will take place in Singapore from Aug. 17-20 and not May 25-28 as previously planned. It’s the latest change of plans for the elite gathering of government leaders, business executives, civil society advocates and artists, actors and musicians. Because of COVID concerns, the event usually held in January was first postponed to May and scheduled for the Swiss city of Lucerne, before the venue was moved to Singapore that same month.

DENMARK-VIRUS PASSPORT

Denmark to develop digital passport proving vaccinations

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s government is developing a digital passport that would show whether people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus. The idea is that the passport would allow people to travel and could help the government ease restrictions on public life. The finance minister said Wednesday that “in three-four months, a digital corona passport will be ready for use in, for example, business travel.” He said “it is absolutely crucial for us to be able to restart Danish society so that companies can get back on track.” The EU says it is looking into various proposals for similar systems to help travel.

SPAIN-TOURISM

Pandemic pulverizes Spain’s tourism as arrivals plunge 77%

MADRID (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic has pulverized Spain’s key tourism industry with arrivals dropping to 19 million in 2020, down from the near 84 million visitors the previous year. The 77% decrease snapped a seven-year trend of annual records and ended a decade-long run of yearly increases. The National Statistics Institute said Wednesday that income from foreign tourism plunged in 2020 to just 20 billion euros ($24 billion), 79% less than the 92 billion euros received in 2019. The private news agency Europa Press said the country had not received as few visitors from abroad since 1969.

GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATIONS-TV

Netflix once again dominates Golden Globe TV nominations

NEW YORK (AP) — Netflix has built on its recent dominance at scooping up Golden Globe TV nominations, getting 20 nods today — nearly three times as many as its closest competitor, HBO. Netflix, which beat its own record of 17 TV nominations from last year, secured three out of the five nominations for best drama TV series — “The Crown,” “Ozark” and “Ratched” — and four of the five acting nods for best actress in that category for Olivia Colman, Emma Corrin, Laura Linney and Sarah Paulson. HBO Max scored nominations with “Lovecraft Country” and “The Flight Attendant,” which also earned “The Big Bang Theory” veteran Kaley Cuoco her first Globe nod.

MORGAN WALLEN

Country singer Morgan Wallen suspended from label after racial slur

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country star Morgan Wallen has been suspended from his label after a video surfaced showed him shouting a racial slur. The video, which was first published by TMZ on Tuesday night, showed him yelling profanities outside a home in Nashville, Tennessee. Wallen said in a statement to TMZ that he is embarrassed and sorry. He said there’s never an excuse for such language. Wallen’s label Big Loud Records says in a statement posted to social media on Wednesday that his contract has been suspended indefinitely. Republic Records, which he is co-signed to, said “such behavior will not be tolerated.”

Health workers in virus-hit Myanmar start anti-coup protests

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Medical workers across Myanmar began a civil disobedience protest against Monday’s coup, wearing red ribbons and declaring they won’t work for the new military government.

The army takeover that ousted the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi over allegations of fraud in November’s elections could not have come at a worse time for a country battling a steady rise in COVID-19 cases with a dangerously inadequate health system.

“We want to show the world we are totally against military dictatorship and we want our elected government and leader back,” said Dr. Zun Ei Phyu, who lives in Yangon, the biggest city and commercial capital. “We want to show them we will follow only our elected government. Not the military.”

Health workers in government hospitals and facilities issued a statement Wednesday opposing the coup. Photos were shared on social media showing workers with red ribbons pinned to their clothes or holding printed photos of red ribbons. Others used a three-finger salute that has become a symbol of pro-democracy protests in neighboring Thailand, where the military staged a coup six years ago and remains influential.

Some medical staff went on strike while others who continued work in government-run clinics made public their opposition to the new military rulers.

Some of those on strike have begun to volunteer at charity health clinics, many of which were shut down as a precaution against a surge in COVID-19 cases. The clinics that have remained reopen are extending their working hours so people can still receive care during the protest, Zun Ei Phyu said.

“We give free treatment and medicine to anyone who is in need,” she said, adding the clinics often operate with donations from charities and local communities.

Myanmar’s early response to the pandemic mirrored that of many countries: borders were nearly completely closed, lengthy quarantines were imposed on travelers, and daily life slowed with stay-at-home orders.

It seemed to work until early September, when cases exploded from less than 1,000 to some 14,300 a month later. Now with more than 140,600 confirmed cases and 3,100 deaths, Myanmar’s fragile health system faces the perfect storm of the pandemic and the coup.

“You could expect the military to take full advantage of COVID-19 as a political opportunity, not as a health care responsibility to the people of Myanmar,” said Ronan Lee, a visiting scholar at Queen Mary University of London’s International State Crime Initiative.

History shows those concerns are not without merit.

In 2000, decades after the former military junta took control, the World Health Organization ranked Myanmar’s health system as one of the worst. According to the World Bank, Myanmar’s health expenditure was around 1.87% of GDP in 2010, the year before democratic reforms began.

In March 2020, Myanmar reported just 0.71 intensive care unit beds and 0.46 ventilators per 100,000 population, which was insufficient to deal with even a moderate outbreak, according to data from the World Bank and WHO.

Donations of medical equipment have since arrived and the government has increased bed capacity with new quarantine centers, clinics and hospitals. But experts cite a lack of medical staff as a continuing problem.

Myanmar’s small health care force had just 6.7 physicians per 10,000 people in 2018, significantly lower than the global average of 15.6 in 2017.

The coup comes just days after Myanmar launched its vaccination campaign with some 1.5 million doses of a two-shot vaccine donated from India. Last week, Suu Kyi observed vaccinations at a hospital in the capital, Naypyitaw, and told reporters that the process must proceed carefully because the government does not have all the supplies it needs.

The military has its own medical corps and medical facilities across the country. But Sharon Bell, a researcher who previously studied the health system in Myanmar, said she doesn’t anticipate the military will have the ability to control outbreaks or conduct sufficient vaccination programs.

The military released a statement saying “prevention of the current outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic will be efficiently carried out with momentum.”

According to Lee, when the military talks about getting the virus under control, it means “locking down the community and preventing opportunities for public expressions of opposition to their rule.”

“I expect they’ll use the pandemic as a shield to defend them from scrutiny,” he said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Archives for February 2021

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