- June 11, 2021
- Posted by: Stratford Team
- Category: Business
Jun 11th 2021
AMERICA’S ANNUAL inflation rate reached 5% in May, the highest since August 2008. Companies as well as consumers are having to cope with this long-forgotten problem. Supply chains are clogged, input prices are climbing and demand is surging, as people unload pandemic-year savings and stimulus cheques. Firms are passing on price rises and raising pay. (British workers, too, are benefiting from boosted bargaining power.) With vacancies hard to fill some companies are seeking to save labour costs through automation or shifting production abroad. Investors and bosses worry that China, once a global deflationary force, is starting to export inflation. Factory-gate prices there leapt by 9% in the year to May.
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