-May 7,2020-
New home construction in Visalia and Tulare County have felt COVID’s impact according to two sources. The City of Visalia reports builders permitted just 29 new homes in April 2020 compared to 69 in April 2019. For Tulare County as a whole the numbers are these according to Construction Monitor. For the county builders permitted 56 new homes compared to 132 in April 2019. That is a drop of about 60%.
Installation of solar panels on homes are off as well with permits issued in April 2020 in Tulare County on 115 homes vs 337 in April 2019 or a two-thirds decline.
A recent survey of US craft brewers suggests that 60% of US craft breweries will close if severe social distancing guidelines aren’t lifted by June. The survey is from the chief economist for the Brewers Association.
Meat shortage coming? U.S. hog producers are estimated to have euthanized as many as 7 million pigs in the second quarter with processing and markets suffering. Now an estimate by Co Bank says “Closed Meat Plants Today Mean Empty Meat Cases this Summer”
A summary says the spread of COVID-19 among people who work in many beef and pork plants across the country has led to plant slowdowns and shut downs, creating a bottleneck in the U.S. meat and livestock supply chain. Meat supplies for retail grocery stores could shrink by nearly 30% this Memorial Day, leading to retail pork and beef prices as high as 20% relative to prices last year. Livestock prices have been collapsing, industry associations predict 2020 losses at $13.6 billion for U.S. cattle producers (NCBA) and nearly $5 billion for U.S. hog producers (NPPC).Plants may reopen but attracting workers to the thousands of vacant positions at meat plants across the U.S. is still an issue.
DIRE STRAITS FOR SEAFOOD SECTOR: Politico reports this week that fishermen and fish processors are seeking federal aid having been hit hard by the closure of restaurants, which account for the bulk of all seafood sales. The surge in grocery sales has helped other ag sectors offset some of the lost demand — but shoppers are less likely to buy seafood to cook at home than other meats and fresh produce, and some stores have cut back on fish offerings.
Big rig sales plunge: Preliminary orders for Class 8 trucks plummeted to a 25-year low in April, the first full month of the coronavirus pandemic that impacted wide swaths of the economy, including new truck production.
ACT Research reported 4,100 orders of new tractors for the month, 72% below the same month a year ago and down 46% from March. ACT said it was the lowest month since September 1995 when, after accounting for cancellations, net orders were negative.
Even Costco was hit.Costco reported net sales of $11.39 billion for the retail month of April, the four weeks ended May 3, 2020, a decrease of 1.8 percent from $11.60 billion last year.
Comparable sales for US stores were off 4.7%. A company statement said April sales were negatively impacted by COVID-19. Stay-at-home orders, social distancing restrictions and some mandatory closures led to decreased traffic and sales in our warehouses. Limited service in Travel and our Food Courts; closures of most of our Optical, Hearing Aid and Photo departments, and lower volume and price deflation in our gasoline business negatively impacted our April sales by an estimated 12 percentage points, of which approximately 70% related to gasoline. The decline in sales was the first in a decade.
Rail carloads off nearly 30 percent
America’s railroads moved 88% fewer cars and 46% less coal in most recent report
