国际英语资讯:Yearender: U.S. economy slows in 2019, thorny road ahead_时事

国际英语资讯:Yearender: U.S. economy slows in 2019, thorny road ahead

Official data showed that job gains have averaged 180,000 per month so far in 2019, compared with an average monthly gain of 223,000 in 2018, indicating that the overall level of hiring has been slowing down over the past few months. Meanwhile, the pace of payroll growth has remained weak.

According to the CNBC Global CFO Council survey for the fourth quarter, 60 percent of chief financial officers expect their company's head count to decrease over the next 12 months.

The NABE survey panelists believed the U.S. economy would slow to 1.8 percent in 2020. "The consensus forecast calls for a pickup in housing, but slower growth in business investment and consumer spending, along with larger deficits in trade and the federal budget," said NABE President Constance Hunter, chief economist at KPMG.

The federal budget deficit, which ballooned rapidly during the Trump administration, has drawn concern from many. Powell, the Fed chairman, recently stressed the urgency for the U.S. Congress to address the issue, noting that there would otherwise be less fiscal space to support the economy in a downturn.

On the trade front, uncertainty has been the only certainty. Despite progress with Canada, Mexico and China, the United States has proposed tariffs on French products in retaliation for digital service tax, and its Boeing-Airbus aircraft subsidy dispute with the European Union has been escalating.

"The administration's trade policies have left little room to maneuver," Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, a major accounting firm, wrote in an analysis.