DC Velocity - November 2019

newsworthy

U.S. CONSUMERS ARE EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FLEXING their purchasing muscle during the upcoming holiday shopping season despite global trade tensions and growing economic uncertainty.

Holiday retail sales for the U.S. peak season, defined as November and December, are expected to increase between 3.8% and 4.2% over 2018 levels, according to a forecast by the National Retail Federation (NRF). That’s slightly higher than the average holiday-sales increase of 3.7% recorded over the previous five years, the group said. NRF expects sales to total somewhere between $727.9 billion and $730.7 billion, excluding purchases made at automobile dealers, gas stations, and restaurants.

“The U.S. economy is continuing to grow, and consumer spending is
still the primary engine behind that growth,” NRF President and CEO
Matthew Shay said in a release. “Nonetheless, there has clearly been
a slowdown brought on by considerable uncertainty around issues
including trade, interest rates, global risk factors, and political rhetoric.
Consumers are in good financial shape, and retailers expect a strong
holiday season.”
The forecast came just days after the Institute for Supply Management
(ISM) released statistics showing that economic activity in the U.S.
manufacturing sector contracted in September. ISM reported that its
PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) for the month registered 47.8%, a
decrease of 1. 3 percentage points from the August reading. That repre-
sented the lowest reading since June 2009, the last month of the Great
Recession, when the index registered 46.3%.

Another weight around the ankles of the stumbling economy could be the Trump administration’s spiraling tariff war with China. Retailers are using myriad mitigation tactics to limit the impact on consumers, and the impact will ultimately vary by company and by product, NRF said. But so far, despite the negative indicators, consumers continue to shop.

A third of American workers aren’t getting enough sleep, and truck drivers are near the top of the list, according to a Ball State University study.

The study, which was based on data gathered from more than 150,000 working adults between 2010 and 2018, found that not only are U.S. workers not getting enough sleep but the problem is getting worse by the year. In 2018, 35.6% of those surveyed reported getting “inadequate sleep”—defined as less than seven hours per night—compared with just 31.0% in 2010. Professions reporting the highest levels of poor sleep in 2018 included police and military (50%), health-care support (45%), transport and material moving (41%), and production occupations (41%), according to the study’s authors.

The study links sleep deprivation to ris-
ing rates of chronic disease nationwide.
“Inadequate sleep is associated with mild
to severe physical and mental health
problems, injury, loss of productivity,
and premature mortality,” said Jagdish
Khubchandani, lead author of the study
and a health science professor at Ball
State in Muncie, Indiana. “This is a signif-
icant finding because the U.S. is currently
witnessing high rates of chronic diseases
across all ages, and many of these diseases
are related to sleep problems.”
The study, titled “Short Sleep Duration
in Working American Adults,” found no
cause for the decline in sleep duration, but
Khubchandani pointed to some workplace
changes that may be having an influence,
including the tendency to work longer
hours and workers’ expanded access to
and use of electronic devices, which he said
tend to “keep people up at night.”
Keys to addressing the problem include
raising awareness of the issue and improv-
ing diagnosis and treatment of sleep disor-
ders, the report said.