U.S. Jobless Soar, Australia Slump, Supply-Chain Sages: Eco Day

Bloomberg

Published Mar 30, 2020 06:07PM ET

Updated Mar 30, 2020 07:27PM ET

U.S. Jobless Soar, Australia Slump, Supply-Chain Sages: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Tuesday, Asia. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

  • The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits is forecast to set a record for the second straight week, with the darkest prediction expecting the figure to almost double
  • Australia’s economy will contract almost 10% in the first three quarters of this year, the most since 1930-31, says James McIntyre at Bloomberg Economics. He also says the government’s third tranche of fiscal stimulus Monday won’t be its last
  • “I’ve never heard the words ‘supply chain’ uttered so much by government officials and major media outlets as I have in the past two weeks,” says Chad Autry, professor of supply chains at the University of Tennessee
  • The opening of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics has been rescheduled for July 2021 after organizers agreed to an unprecedented postponement
  • Japan needs to spend far more than it did after the global financial crisis to help the economy, says former economy minister Hiroshige Seko. Meantime, all it might take to shut down the mighty economic engine of Tokyo is a jump in infections
  • Relax, eat out and shop. That’s the latest message from the Chinese government to its people, after months of warning them to stay indoors because of the coronavirus
  • Adding trillions of dollars of borrowing is necessary fiscal support, says St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard. Meantime, in an effort to capture rapidly evolving conditions, the New York Fed unveiled a new Weekly Economic Index. And it’s dire
  • G-20 trade chiefs pledged to try to keep supply chains open as the world fights to contain the coronavirus pandemic
  • The German government’s economic advisers predict the worst recession since the global financial crisis
  • Hungary’s parliament handed Prime Minister Viktor Orban the right to rule by decree indefinitely, effectively putting the EU democracy under his sole command for as long as he sees fit
  • As the number of U.S. Covid-19 cases climbed this month, Pine Village Preschool shuttered all 10 of its locations in the Boston area and furloughed almost all of its roughly 125 employees
  • Throughout the coronavirus crisis that’s killed 35,000 people worldwide, Jair Bolsonaro has kept up face-to-face meetings and pushed everyday Brazilians to get back to work

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