The National Retail Federation (NRF) is predicting a successful holiday shopping season, citing a strong U.S. economy and continued consumer spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though the traditional kick-off to the holiday season started with Black Friday, this holiday shopping season was already in full swing,\u201d Kleinhenz said, noting that many shoppers started earlier because a late Thanksgiving has left five fewer shopping days before Christmas than last year. \u201cBased on data seen so far, conditions are shaping up for a successful holiday retail season.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cU.S. economic growth remained strong in the third quarter, with gross domestic product expanding more than many estimates of the economy\u2019s long-run potential capacity,\u201d Kleinhenz said. \u201cPersonal consumption continues to provide the horsepower behind the economy, as it has throughout this expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kleinhenz\u2019s comments came in the December edition of NRF\u2019s Monthly Economic Review, which said NRF stands by its forecast that retail sales during the November-December holiday season will grow between 2.5% and 3.5% over 2023. A near-record 197 million people shopped during the holiday weekend from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, and 58% of holiday shoppers had started by early November.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsumers\u2019 view of the economy has improved and they remain supportive of retail sales,\u201d Kleinhenz said, adding that the University of Michigan\u2019s consumer sentiment survey climbed for the fourth consecutive month to 71.8 in November, reaching its highest level since April.<\/p>\n
GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.8% in the third quarter while personal consumption was up 3.5% year over year. Gross domestic income, which measures the income earned while producing the goods and services measured by GDP, lagged GDP for the second quarter in a row at 2.2%, which \u201cadded to the argument that the economy is slowing, but neither indicates that growth has halted.\u201d NRF expects fourth-quarter GDP will be up by an annualised pace of 2%.<\/p>\n
October saw only 12,000 new jobs created amid two hurricanes and multiple major labour strikes. Nonetheless, unemployment held steady at 4.1%, employment was up by 104,000 jobs on a three-month average, and consumer spending \u201ccurrently remains on solid footing,\u201d Kleinhenz said.<\/p>\n
Disposable income was up 5.1% year over year in October and employee compensation, a key measure of wages and salaries, was up 5.7%. Consumption was up 5.4% even as the personal saving rate increased to 4.4%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Retail Federation (NRF) is predicting a successful holiday shopping season, citing a strong U.S. economy and continued consumer spending. \u201cEven though the traditional kick-off to the holiday season started with Black Friday, this holiday shopping season was already in full swing,\u201d Kleinhenz said, noting that many shoppers started earlier because a late Thanksgiving…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28956,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-28955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulletin"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n