US Job Situation

There has finally been a drop in unemployment numbers.  But this is not exactly a call to bring out the champagne.  There has been such an increase in unemployment numbers within the last few months due to COVID-19 that it is quite hard not to see an increase. Let’s take a look at what some of this means.

Looking at the numbers for the end of June.  Thankfully unemployment dropped to 11.1% (which is still very high).  Nearly 5 million jobs were added in June which was a lot more than was estimated by economists.  In addition, June marks the second consecutive month that there has been this level of growth…but it does have to be seen in context in that 20 million jobs were lost in April during lockdown.

But looking toward the future it has been recognized that since many more individuals are now working from home and businesses are allowing for this, more jobs will also be created. There will be more opportunity and wages could increase since there is less money being spent on office maintenance.  This will definitely comprise some of the direction of the future.

Growth of US Economy

The US Economy has enjoyed expansion recently in many sectors.  The two we will specifically look at here are: the Internet and beer.

In 2018, approximately 10% of America’s GDP came from the internet.  $2.1 trillion money was made from this sector according to estimates from The Internet Association.  This represents America’s fourth largest economic sector (1-3 being real estate, government, manufacturing).  The Internet provides almost 6 million (direct) jobs – 4 percent of all of America’s jobs and 13 million (indirect) jobs. $64 billion was spent by internet companies in capital expenditures.

In 2018, according to numbers from the Brewers Association approximately $79.1 billion was contributed to the American economy by craft brewers. This translates to around 0.4 percent of America’s GDP.  It is 4 percent higher than the contribution from craft brewery in 2017. The contribution from small and independent brewers was also significant with the provision of 559,545 jobs, 150,055 of which were directly from breweries.