While Americans rode out the pandemic by buying televisions and furniture, businesses that relied on face-to-face commerce suffered. Now, consumers are returning to their pre-pandemic habits.
pandemic, his restaurants are rebounding, as weary consumers shift from buying goods to spending on services, such as dining out.
“We are just in the early stages of seeing the rotation of consumer spending from goods to services. As time goes on, you are going to see more of that. Food services are quite strong. Travel is picking up, airfares and hotel occupancy,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “The consumer is looking more to services spending, especially with spring and summer upon us.”
From the outset of the pandemic, Americans trapped at home took solace in buying things. Things to use at home. Things to improve the home. Things to wear at home. That has not happened. Executives at Target had expected some of the froth in consumer demand to taper off this year with the waning of stimulus dollars. But the speed and extent of the shift caught them flat-footed.
Jason Hilsenbeck, president of Load Match, an equipment clearinghouse in Illinois, said the drop in demand is hitting new entrants to the short-haul trucking business. More than 2,500 new operations with one to two people entered the market since early 2021, hoping to capitalize on elevated freight demand, he said.“The small trucking companies who made a killing last year on the high paying spot market are the first not to have loads when the freight volumes come down,” he said in an email.
Almost 1.5 million leisure and hospitality jobs that existed in February 2020 have vanished, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Federal Reserve is expected to continue raising interest rates by half a point at each of its next two meetings in a bid to slow consumer price increases. With almost two job openings for every seeker, there is room to cool business hiring without eliminating existing positions.
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