Re: Tema: PPCC - Pisitófilos Creditófagos - Primavera 2023

[asustadísimos]

[Es un gran error pensar que ahora está pasando lo que pasó en 2006-2010. Ahora estamos en el final del final. No hay resucitación posible. Hay resurrección: nacimiento a una nueva vida en un nuevo modelo.]

[Derby]

https://apnews.com/article/evictions-homelessness-affordable-housing-landlords-rental-assistance-dc4a03864011334538f82d2f404d2afb

Eviction filings are 50% higher than they were pre-pandemic

(...)The latest data mirrors trends that started last year, with the Eviction Lab finding nearly 970,000 evictions filed in locations it tracks — a 78.6% increase compared to 2021, when much of the country was following an eviction moratorium. By December, eviction filings were nearly back to pre-pandemic levels.

At the same time, rent prices nationwide are up about 5% from a year ago and 30.5% above 2019, according to the real estate company Zillow. There are few places for displaced tenants to go, with the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimating a 7.3 million shortfall of affordable units nationwide.

Many vulnerable tenants would have been evicted long ago if not for a safety net created during the pandemic.

The federal government, as well as many states and localities, issued moratoriums during the pandemic that put evictions on hold; most have now ended. There was also $46.5 billion in federal Emergency Rental Assistance that helped tenants pay rent and funded other tenant protections. Much of that has been spent or allocated, and calls for additional resources have failed to gain traction in Congress.

“The disturbing rise of evictions to pre-pandemic levels is an alarming reminder of the need for us to act — at every level of government — to keep folks safely housed,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, urging Congress to pass a bill cracking down on illegal evictions, fund legal help for tenants and keep evictions off credit reports.

Housing courts are again filling up and ensnaring the likes of 79-year-old Maria Jackson.

[Derby]

https://www.aol.com/middle-class-homebuyers-face-worst-140036177.html

Middle-class homebuyers face the worst housing shortages, survey finds

The housing shortage is hitting middle-income homebuyers hardest.

While 51% of earners in the nation make $75,000 or less, only 23% of available home listings are affordable for these households, according to a report published by the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com. The situation is even worse in cities like San Jose, Calif., and New York where only 5% and 13% of respective available listings are affordable for these families.

However, higher-income folks have more options in their income bracket. While only 7% of households make $250,000 or more, they can afford 85% of listings shown.(...)

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/d0c0fd7b-e2fc-4da3-a698-4b959efa1bfd

Defaults raise alarm over stability of San Francisco’s commercial property

Owners have handed back the keys to some of the city’s most valuable real estate

Lenders to San Francisco’s beleaguered commercial real estate market are braced for defaults on billions of dollars of debt after the owners of the city’s largest shopping mall and biggest hotel ceased loan payments and handed back the keys on what was once the city’s most valuable property.

This week, Westfield and Brookfield Properties announced they had stopped making payments on a $558mn loan secured against San Francisco’s sprawling downtown mall that they have owned since 2002, and would surrender the premises to its lenders.

Days earlier, New York-listed Park Hotels & Resorts said it expected to hand over ownership of two of its prime San Francisco hotels — the Hilton Union Square and Parc 55 — after it stopped making payments on a $725mn loan. The hotels were valued at more than $1.5bn when the loan was issued in 2016, suggesting that its owners believe their value has more than halved.(...)

A senior executive at a large global real estate lender said that San Francisco’s office market would experience greater distress than other parts of the commercial real estate market. He said there would be “refinancing challenges” as loans mature on empty offices.

“It is clear the assets won’t be worth more than the debt balances even if they put in more cash so [landlords will] ask themselves,<a href="http://am I better off just handing the asset back to the lender" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://am I better off just handing the asset back to the lender</a>?”

Office vacancies have risen to 30 per cent in San Francisco, the highest of any big US city. Hotels in San Francisco have also been particularly hard hit. The city has an average daily room rate of $207, which is below 2019 levels — one of just two large US cities where rates have not increased. Hotel bookings in San Francisco have been susceptible to a drop in travellers from China and as safety concerns have prompted business conventions to relocate.

Club Quarters, a business hotel owned by Blackstone Group, has been delinquent on a $274mn loan since 2020. The Huntington Hotel, a historic luxury hotel in Nob Hill, defaulted on a $56mn loan originated by Deutsche Bank last year and was then later sold at a foreclosure auction for about half the size of the loan.

More than 20 other San Francisco hotels have CMBS loans that mature in the next two years, according to property data provider CoStar; 15 of these are on their lender’s “watchlist”, meaning they have missed repayments or are likely to miss future payments.

The accelerating number of defaults across multiple property asset classes has raised concerns about a drop in city tax revenues that could fuel a “doom loop” — an economic and social spiral that becomes impossible to reverse. Large office buildings trading at heavily discounted prices would quickly erode a crucial part of the city’s tax base. San Francisco has projected a $780mn budget deficit over the next two years, which will affect its ability to provide public services or offer incentives to businesses to help revitalise downtown.

Owners of some of San Francisco’s iconic buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid and Uber’s Mission Bay headquarters have petitioned the city to lower their tax burden as the value of their properties has plunged.

“The concern for San Francisco is that it loses its critical mass,” said LaSalvia at Moody’s. He said that there was a “snowball effect” in which departing retailers and tech companies leads to an even greater reduction in foot traffic, increasing the risk for remaining tenants and owners, who are then more likely to default.

“When you get below the point where that vibrancy that draws tourists, workers and shoppers is gone, that’s really hard to come back from,” he said.

[Derby]

https://www.lavanguardia.com/politica/20230617/9048371/elecciones-municipales-pactos-alcaldias-barcelona-hoy-en-directo.html

Jaume Collboni, nuevo alcalde de Barcelona

El candidato del PSC Jaume Collboni se convierte en alcalde de Barcelona tras recibir más votos que Xavier Trias. El socialista ha estado avalado por los votos de Barcelona en Comú y el PP, mientras Trias ha estado apoyado solamente por ERC.

Cómo ríe Sirera, del PP...

[saturno]

Al final resulta que el acuerdo del castillo de Eu sigue funcionando.

¡Links!

(Gracias)

https://www.boe.es/biblioteca_juridica/abrir_pdf.php?id=PUB-DH-2021-191


El papel de las grandes potencias en España desde las guerras napoleónicas es decisivo. En 1833, en 1844, en 1870-73, en 1917, en 1936, en 1974, en 2004, en 2017... y seguimos. Quizás la salida sea entregarnos sin más a la protección de Washington, y dejarnos de pamemas.

Pregunto en público porque la respuesta será interesante :

¿Esas cartas figuran en archivos del BOE porque tocan a reyes y por tanto al Estado?

¿Hay algo que siga vigente de lo acordado en el Castillo d'Eu?
Después de todo, el tratado de Gibraltar es de esa época

¿Los archivos, correos, etc, de los monarcas actuales se conservan como éstos, en el BOE, Son de acceso público como cualquier otro documento de rango oficial?
O el monarca actual ya no es el Estado ?

(Gracias por el link. Impresiona el contenido y el archivo.)

[Derby]

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-to-pay-ivf-fertility-treatment-amid-declining-birth-rate-2023-6

Beijing is offering to pay for IVF and most other fertility treatments after China recorded its first population decline in more than 60 years

Bejing announced it would start covering fertility treatments in July as China scrambles to reverse a declining birth rate.

Beijing's government said this week it would cover more than a dozen fertility treatments, including IVF, embryo transplantation, and freezing and storing semen, Reuters reported.

The announcement comes as China, long the world's most populated country, faces its first population decrease in 60 years. Births fell to a record low of 6.77 per 1,000 people in 2022, Reuters reported. The population decline could mean that India will soon have the world's most people, if not already.

According to the United Nations, China reached a peak of 1.426 billion people in 2022, and experts predict the population could drop below 1 billion by the year 2100. A declining population in China could have severe implications for its future economic health.

Bejing is not the only city in China announcing sweeping fertility changes. Some other cities are loosening restrictions on who can access fertility treatment.

Previously, the national policy required women to be married in order to register children and access treatments like IVF and egg freezing, Reuters reported. Government advisors suggested earlier this year that single women should also be permitted access to fertility treatments, though key Chinese leaders have not yet publically commented on the issue.

The country is still awaiting a court verdict in the landmark case of Teresa Xu, a 35-year-old unmarried Chinese woman who sued a Bejing hospital in 2019 for refusing to let her freeze her eggs due to her marital status. 

"If (the country) decides to allow single women to freeze their eggs from the standpoint of encouraging childbirth, this will definitely help single women to have children," Xu previously said, according to a Reuters report.

Meanwhile, private clinics in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan have already begun allowing unmarried women access to fertility treatments, including IVF, Reuters reported.

[puede ser]

[Barcelona.— ¡Uf! Qué paz. La Suelta 2025 por las buenas tiene una oportunidad.]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/cataluna/2023-06-17/collboni-alcalde-sorpresa-barcelona-votos-pp_3667635/

Ante este clima de enfado, Collboni se intentó mostrar conciliador. "Cuento con todos ustedes. Voy a ser el alcalde de todos y todas. La ciudad irá hacia adelante en un modelo en el que la mayoría se pueda sentir representado". No hubo concreciones. Ni sobre movilidad, ni del aeropuerto, ni el tranvía. Solo dijo una cosa: "La vivienda será la gran prioridad y seremos la primera ciudad en desplegar la nueva Ley de Vivienda del Gobierno de España. La vivienda es el objetivo número uno".

Feijóo hace 7 años:
https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20170506/422331919622/los-propietarios-de-viviendas-de-uso-turistico-piden-a-feijoo-la-suspension-del-decreto-hasta-que-se-revise.html

[Los caminos del Creador son inescrutables y bellos:
Keith Jarrett | The Köln Concert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_IEjONNRSw&t=2593s]

[Maloserá]

2589.msg216246#msg216246 date=1686987949]
...
¿Hay algo que siga vigente de lo acordado en el Castillo d'Eu?
Después de todo, el tratado de Gibraltar es de esa época
...

El tratado de Gibraltar es anterior, de principios del siglo XVIII... el final de la guerra de Sucesión que es la primera gran intervención europea. Gibraltar y Menorca pasaron a ser británicos.

[puede ser]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/economia/2023-06-17/politica-vivienda-diagnosis-fracaso-cataluna_3666049/

Política de vivienda, diagnosis de un fracaso en Cataluña y en toda España
Hace décadas que España y Cataluña carecen de una verdadera política de vivienda, de manera que lo que fueron activos residenciales se han convertido hoy en activos financieros
(...)
"Debemos poner retos. Estamos frente a un fracaso colectivo. Y no está de más mirar hacia atrás a épocas pasadas donde había gente que lo hizo mejor que nosotros. Entre el año 61 y 75 se realizaron 4,8 millones viviendas de protección oficial de todo tipo. De calidad entre media alta y alta. Ahora solo quedan 300.000, el resto pasaron a propiedad privada", apuntó Juan María Nin en este foro de reflexión económica y social.

Nin sí se atrevió mirar hacia atrás y sus conclusiones resultaron muy sangrantes: "Desde la Ley Boyer se han levantado 100.000 viviendas sociales. ¿Cómo debemos asumir este fracaso colectivo? Está claro que lo estamos haciendo mal".
(...)
 También el presidente catalán, Pere Aragonès, quien abre esta semana una crisis de gobierno en la Generalitat y nombra nueva consellera de Territori, elogia a Esther Capella y, como nueva titular de la cartera, le pone deberes. El primer tema, "la vivienda". Desde luego, las grandes soluciones de su predecesor, Juli Fernández, expropiar pisos vacíos de grandes tenedores —50 pisos al año— no iban a solventar nada. Por lo reducido de su alcance y porque cometía el error de confundir la asistencia social con una verdadera política de vivienda. Porque una cosa es entregar viviendas a las clases más desprotegidas y otra desplegar una política de vivienda social.
(...)
 Las inmobiliarias no solo ponen condiciones injustas a los futuros inquilinos, es que no tienen producto. En Barcelona, 9.720 viviendas cuentan con esa calificación, son los pisos turísticos legales. Parece urgente dedicar dinero público a reformar el PEUAT —Plan especial urbanístico de alojamientos turísticos— para revocar estas licencias en la capital catalana.

Solo Ada Colau lo dejó caer en durante la campaña electoral. Fiel su estilo, ya advirtió que no pagaría un euro por retirar estas licencias. Un planteamiento poco realista. Pero, ciertamente, a nada mejor se podrían dedicar fondos públicos. Serían las diferencias entre una verdadera política de vivienda y los parches asistenciales que suele ofrecer nuestra clase política. Eso, más las ayudas fiscales a los propietarios podría revertir, en parte, una situación viciada en muchas plazas. Y que nadie se confunda. Bienvenidos sean los turistas y las divisas que traen a países como el nuestro, faltos de petróleo. Pero que vengan a hoteles. Como toda la vida. Porque la vivienda es el problema. Y cada año que pasa sin que se afronte como lo que es, una emergencia nacional, la situación se va volviendo peor.

[pollo]

https://www.elconfidencial.com/economia/2023-06-17/politica-vivienda-diagnosis-fracaso-cataluna_3666049/

Política de vivienda, diagnosis de un fracaso en Cataluña y en toda España
Hace décadas que España y Cataluña carecen de una verdadera política de vivienda, de manera que lo que fueron activos residenciales se han convertido hoy en activos financieros
(...)
"Debemos poner retos. Estamos frente a un fracaso colectivo. Y no está de más mirar hacia atrás a épocas pasadas donde había gente que lo hizo mejor que nosotros. Entre el año 61 y 75 se realizaron 4,8 millones viviendas de protección oficial de todo tipo. De calidad entre media alta y alta. Ahora solo quedan 300.000, el resto pasaron a propiedad privada", apuntó Juan María Nin en este foro de reflexión económica y social.

Nin sí se atrevió mirar hacia atrás y sus conclusiones resultaron muy sangrantes: "Desde la Ley Boyer se han levantado 100.000 viviendas sociales. ¿Cómo debemos asumir este fracaso colectivo? Está claro que lo estamos haciendo mal".
(...)
 También el presidente catalán, Pere Aragonès, quien abre esta semana una crisis de gobierno en la Generalitat y nombra nueva consellera de Territori, elogia a Esther Capella y, como nueva titular de la cartera, le pone deberes. El primer tema, "la vivienda". Desde luego, las grandes soluciones de su predecesor, Juli Fernández, expropiar pisos vacíos de grandes tenedores —50 pisos al año— no iban a solventar nada. Por lo reducido de su alcance y porque cometía el error de confundir la asistencia social con una verdadera política de vivienda. Porque una cosa es entregar viviendas a las clases más desprotegidas y otra desplegar una política de vivienda social.
(...)
 Las inmobiliarias no solo ponen condiciones injustas a los futuros inquilinos, es que no tienen producto. En Barcelona, 9.720 viviendas cuentan con esa calificación, son los pisos turísticos legales. Parece urgente dedicar dinero público a reformar el PEUAT —Plan especial urbanístico de alojamientos turísticos— para revocar estas licencias en la capital catalana.

Solo Ada Colau lo dejó caer en durante la campaña electoral. Fiel su estilo, ya advirtió que no pagaría un euro por retirar estas licencias. Un planteamiento poco realista. Pero, ciertamente, a nada mejor se podrían dedicar fondos públicos. Serían las diferencias entre una verdadera política de vivienda y los parches asistenciales que suele ofrecer nuestra clase política. Eso, más las ayudas fiscales a los propietarios podría revertir, en parte, una situación viciada en muchas plazas. Y que nadie se confunda. Bienvenidos sean los turistas y las divisas que traen a países como el nuestro, faltos de petróleo. Pero que vengan a hoteles. Como toda la vida. Porque la vivienda es el problema. Y cada año que pasa sin que se afronte como lo que es, una emergencia nacional, la situación se va volviendo peor.

Para fracasar en algo al menos hay que intentarlo...

[Derby]

https://www.vozpopuli.com/economia_y_finanzas/antonio-fuente-ley-vivienda-estupor-mercado-inmobiliario.html

Antonio de la Fuente: "La ley de Vivienda ha causado estupor en el mercado inmobiliario"

El Director Financiero Corporativo de la inmobiliaria Colliers, Antonio de la Fuente, es el invitado de esta semana en 'Cara a cara con Gabi Sanz'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ocSLmHBLmc

min. 9:25 "Nosotros pensamos que en segunda mano acabarán bajando."

[Derby]

https://www.ft.com/content/f358c4b3-f3cd-4b71-81a4-a8734c40fb2e

A warning for the smug mortgage bores

Interest rate pain will come to us all in time — and it could well cost the Tories the next election

In a week where the entire nation has been gripped by interest rate panic, the loudest voices in the room are those of the mortgage bores.

Every workplace, family and social circle has one. Been prattling on about how you signed up for a 10-year fix at a smidgen over 1 per cent long before the chaos of Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini” Budget”? I’m afraid that person is you.

Those less likely to speak up are those whose fixed-rate deal is nearing expiry as interest rates — and anxiety levels — climb higher.

Mortgage bores might claim that they saw it coming, but the reality is more arbitrary. Unless you paid to end your fix early, the precise timing of when deals start and end is mostly down to luck. Nevertheless, mortgage rates beginning with a 6 or 7 are going to be a painful adjustment for hundreds of thousands of households coming to the end of their deals, potentially adding hundreds of pounds to monthly outgoings.

If your agreement has a few years left to run, don’t feel too smug. You might not be making lifestyle economies to deal with payment shock now, but your friends and colleagues certainly are (even if they don’t want to talk about it). And the pain of higher repayments will hit all borrowers in time — it could well cost the Conservatives the next election.

Amid the drama of this week’s great repricing — with HSBC raising rates twice in one week and other lenders looking to follow suit — the polls tell us that twice as many people blame the government for rising mortgage costs as those who blame global crises such as the war in Ukraine or the effects of the pandemic.

There have been calls for Downing Street summits with mortgage lenders and even Covid furlough-style payouts to help struggling borrowers. But taming inflation by squeezing people’s finances is exactly what rate rises are designed to do.

“If the policy isn’t hurting, it isn’t working,” was how then-chancellor John Major put it in 1989 as rates headed towards 15 per cent. But such rises are a blunt tool. The mortgage bores (and the mortgage free) can still consume with wild abandon; the pain is concentrated on those whose fixes have expired. The lottery of it all can be both personally and politically unpleasant.

By and large, mortgage lenders acted admirably during the pandemic, offering forbearance to distressed borrowers. Regulators have been clear this support must continue. Yet even if rates drop back in coming years, we will not see the return of mortgage rates starting with a 1 or a 2. Those refinancing home loans face a further dilemma. Should they risk a tracker rate or short-term fix in the hope of locking into a lower rate in future?

People feel painfully ill-equipped to deal with a decision that could make or break the family finances for years to come — it’s a particular problem for millennial couples saddled with bigger mortgages and childcare costs. Advice only goes so far. Brokers can find you the best deals on the market but they can’t tell you which option to pick. A five-year fix at current levels means borrowers could be stuck making higher repayments for longer than they need to, but many crave certainty — and protection from further increases.

In the UK, the value of our homes is firmly shackled to our sense of self-worth. The current situation is politically toxic for the Tories, long regarded as the party of home ownership. From Right to Buy in the Thatcher era to Help to Buy in recent years, owning your own home has symbolised success; a one-way ticket to financial prosperity — even if you borrowed heavily to get on the ladder.

Since the financial crisis, average pay growth has been puny in real terms but average house prices have soared, making property owners feel considerably richer. Seeing a neighbouring property advertised for a handsome sum on Rightmove is the equivalent of financial Viagra, helping alleviate the pain of expensive mortgages. But as more fixes expire over the next 18 months, the impact of higher rates will inevitably cause house prices to fall.

This is terrible timing for a government heading into a general election. But however worried borrowers might be feeling, anxiety among those renting privately is even higher. In April, letting agent Foxtons said it had 97,000 tenants chasing after just 2,000 available rental properties.

Annual rent increases have hit record highs, making it even harder for the 5.5mn UK households renting to ever achieve the dream of property ownership. So while higher mortgage payments will smart as the era of cheap money comes to a close, homeowners still have reasons to count their blessings.

[Derby]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-17/powell-wake-up-call-means-more-corporate-defaults-credit-weekly

Powell Wake-Up Call Means More Corporate Defaults

Maturity wall is starting to rise as quantitative easing fades
Companies are turning to debt exchanges with mixed results

America’s most leveraged companies got a painful reality check this week when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell warned that a rate cut is still a couple of years away.

Companies will have to swallow higher borrowing costs for longer while finding a way to manage their liabilities. Rising funding costs increase the risk of defaults and distressed exchanges as firms struggle to adapt to a shrinking money supply.(...)

[Derby]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lots-of-hiring-but-not-so-much-working-d4f01646

Lots of Hiring, but Not So Much Working

Companies resist layoffs even as economic weakness looms

The hiring boom obscures what looks like a contradictory economic trend: Employees are working fewer hours.

The average number of hours worked a week by private-sector employees declined to 34.3 in May, below the 2019 average and down from a peak of 35 hours in January 2021, according to the Labor Department.

This could be ominous. With growth now slowing—and by one measure, negative—some employers might be responding by cutting hours, perhaps in preparation for recession.

“In the past, reducing working hours has been a reliable harbinger of a wave of layoffs,” said Aichi Amemiya, senior U.S. economist at Nomura Securities.

This time, that recession signal might be a false alarm because unusual postpandemic factors are at work. Indeed, even as employers cut hours, they are also adding workers—something they don’t usually do when contraction looms. Payrolls rose by 339,000 in May and by nearly 1.6 million for the year to date. Layoffs were nearly 13% lower in April than in the average month in 2019, according to the Labor Department.

The expense and trauma of hiring have left employers unusually eager to avoid shedding staff they will need when business picks up again, according to Amemiya. “That’s quite different from the past,” he said.

Businesses are finally able to hire for long-unfilled positions, allowing overworked staff to return to more normal hours. Finally, workers are opting to work less, possibly because of a shift in work-life priorities.

In May, the average factory worker had 3.6 overtime hours, down from 4.1 a year earlier.

Throughout much of the pandemic, American Fleet was churning out diesel engines for trucking companies. The Springfield, Mo., business couldn’t hire fast enough, said sales manager Mark Patterson. “We can do 30 engines a month easy, and last year we were sometimes doing 40—the guys were working overtime to get it all done,” he said.

Then, earlier this year, roaring growth came to an abrupt end. Orders for American Fleet’s engines are down around 40% as consumers’ pandemic-driven goods-buying binge waned, leaving truckers sitting idle. The company shifted from desperately posting job ads online to cutting worker hours.

Normally, reduced worker hours would signal impending job cuts. But Patterson said American Fleet isn’t planning layoffs because mechanics are so hard to find. With fewer orders to fill, workers are prepping engine blocks and upgrading equipment. He is optimistic that sales will start to pick up again based on containership arrivals, but that will take time to filter through.



“There’s such a shortage of labor we’ll do everything we can to keep everybody because you’re afraid you won’t get them back,” Patterson said. “The labor situation is the hardest we’ve ever faced, and we’ve been in business 35 years.”

For many employers—especially in lower-paying industries requiring in-person interaction—critical positions went unfilled, so work was spread across fewer employees—pushing up the number of hours each worker put in.

Droves of workers have since rejoined the labor force, allowing businesses that had operated short-staffed to fill critical roles. “We’re getting more people back to work, and that’s allowing some of the work to get split up,” said Omair Sharif, founder of Inflation Insights.

At hotels, restaurants and shops, which are relatively more reliant on part-time workers, the workweek has dropped around 5% from pandemic peaks—compared with a 2% decline for the economy as a whole.

The restaurant chain El Pollo Loco said it has been able to hire enough people for its locations so that workers no longer need to skip breaks or take overtime.

“Our restaurants are basically fully staffed,” Laurance Roberts, chief executive of the Costa Mesa, Calif.-based company, told analysts recently.

“We’ve gotten past the point where supply was a major constraint—where restaurants had to close on certain days or for certain hours because there weren’t enough workers,” said Stephen Juneau, economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “We’re now operating in a ‘business as usual’ way, but that doesn’t mean that the labor market isn’t still very hot.”

Casey’s, a convenience-store chain, said employees are staying at their jobs longer. That resulted in 20% fewer overtime hours in its latest quarter as stores no longer needed to rely on having fewer employees work more.

A slightly different measure offers another possible reason the job market remains tight as hours drop: People are working less simply because they want to.

During the pandemic, U.S. workers began spending fewer hours in their jobs, according to a paper by the economist Yongseok Shin and colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis. Their research draws from the Census Bureau’s survey of households, reflecting how many hours respondents and other household members actually worked. That differs from the better-known survey of employers, which is based on how many hours per job businesses paid workers for.

That trend has kept building even as the impact of Covid has faded. Outside of the early months of the pandemic, the average worker is now putting in fewer hours than at any point since 2014, during a slow recovery from the 2007-09 global financial crisis.

Survey data suggests this reflects a shift in priorities catalyzed by the pandemic, which remote work likely helped facilitate, making it easier for people to log off early without worrying about bosses looking askance, said Shin.

That the work-life reset affected everyone simultaneously could also be a factor, he added. Workers before the pandemic likely worried about being passed over for promotions or a bonus if they worked less than their peers. “But with enough people choosing to work fewer hours at the same time, they don’t have to worry about losing standing in the economy,” said Shin. “That’s why I think this is a stable trend.”