Category: Economy

Shipping bottlenecks that have led to rising freight costs are cooking up a holiday headache for U.S. retailers.

Costco this week joined the long list of retailers sounding the alarm about escalating shipping prices and the accompanying supply chain issues. The warehouse retailer, which had a similar cautionary tone in May, was joined by athletic wear giant Nike and economic bellwethers FedEx and General Mills in discussing similar concerns.

The cost to ship containers overseas has soared in recent months. Getting a 40-foot container from Shanghai to New York cost about $2,000 a year and a half ago, just before the Covid pandemic. Now, it runs some $16,000, according to Bank of America.

In a conference call Thursday with analysts, Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti called freight costs “permanent inflationary items” and said those increases are combining with things that are “somewhat permanent” to drive up pressure. They include not only freight but also higher labor costs, rising demand for transportation and products, plus shortages in computer chips, oils and chemicals and higher commodity prices.

“We can’t hold on to all those,” Galanti said. “Some of that has to be passed on, and it is being passed on. We’re pragmatic about it.”

Quantifying the situation, he said inflation is likely to run between 3.5% and 4.5% broadly for Costco. He noted that paper products have seen cost increases of 4% to 8% and he cited shortages of plastic and pet products that are driving up prices from 5% to 11%.

“We can hold the line on some of those things and do a little better job — hopefully do a better job than some of our competitors have and be even that more extreme than the value,” Galanti said. “So I think all those things so far, at least despite the challenges, have worked in our favor a little bit.”

The timing, though, is not good.

Persistent inflationary pressures come at a time when retailers are preparing for the holiday shopping season – Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, then into the new year. The pandemic has brought with it a relentless slew of factors that has made inflation an economic buzzword after a generation of mostly moderate price pressures.

Companies are pressed to deal with the situation ahead of a critical period.

“Getting closer to the holidays, we have been working with retailers and what we see is, No. 1, they’ve got to be flexible with their supply chain,” said Keith Jelinek, managing director of the global retail practice at consulting firm Berkeley Research Group. “We’ve seen cost-of-good increases especially in apparel, also costs of inbound shipping with the costs of containers, increases with transportation, trucking to get into distribution centers.”

“All these costs are going to hit the operating profits,” he added. “Retailers right now are really challenged with how much can I pass onto the consumer vs. can I get other efficiencies out of my operations in order to hit my total margin.”

Many companies have indicated that consumers at least for now are willing to take on higher prices. Trillions in government stimulus during the pandemic have helped swell personal wealth, with household net worth up 4.3% in the second quarter.

In the company’s earnings call Thursday, Nike CFO Matthew Friend made references to second-half price increases as well as “stronger than expected full price realization” and “additional transportation, logistics and airfreight costs to move inventory in this dynamic environment.”

No one knows how long consumers will be willing to pay higher prices. Jelinek said he expects the current situation to persist into at least through the holiday season and into the early part of next year

“There’s only so much you can pass on to the consumer,” he said. “What most retailers are doing is looking across their [profit and loss statements] and they’re looking to improve performance and to optimize efficiency. That means really focusing on their supply chain.”

It also means raising prices.

FedEx this week announced that it will hike shipping rates 5.9% for domestic services and 7.9% for other offerings. The company said it is being hit by labor shortages and “costs associated with the challenging operating environment.”

The head of the company’s chief competitor acknowledged the hurdles the business faces.

“The labor market is tight, and in certain parts of the country we’ve had to make some market-rate adjustments to react to the demands of the market,” UPS CEO Carol Tome said Thursday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”

She added that the company also has been hit by supply chain issues.

“I’m afraid this is going to last for a while. These issues have been a long time coming and it’s going to take all of us working together to clear those blockages,” Tome said.

Federal Reserve officials this week conceded that inflation will be higher in 2021 than they had anticipated. However, they still see prices settling to a more normal range just above 2% in the coming years.

But Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said in a speech Friday that she sees “upside risks” to the central bank’s inflation forecasts.

“Many businesses report that cost pressures are intensifying and consumers seem to be willing to pay higher prices,” she said. “The combination of strong demand and supply chain challenges could last longer than I anticipate and could lead people and businesses to raise their expectations for future inflation more than we have seen so far.”

Fed officials said they are ready to start pulling back on the monetary stimulus they’ve provided during the pandemic but probably won’t be raising rates soon. However, Mester said that should prices and expectations hold higher, Fed policy “would need to be adjusted” to control inflation.

Sales of previously owned homes declined 2% in August from July to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 5.88 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Sales were 1.5% lower than August 2020 for the first annual decline in 14 months. Sales, however, are still above pre-pandemic levels.

These numbers are a count of home closings and are based on contracts likely signed in June and July.

“The housing sector is clearly settling down,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, who called last year’s super surge “an anomaly.”

The supply of homes for sale fell 1.5% month to month to 1.29 million at the end of August. Compared with August 2020, inventory is down 13%, but that comparison has been steadily shrinking for several months. At the current sales pace there was a 2.6-month supply.

“We do expect more inventory coming up, maybe with the end of the eviction moratorium,” Yun said.

Tight supply pushed the median price of an existing home sold in August to $356,700, an increase of 14.9% from August of 2020. While the gain is very large, the annual comparisons are moderating as sales slow down.

The median is also being skewed by stronger activity on the higher end of the market. Sales of homes priced below $250,000 fell compared with a year ago, while sales of those priced above $1 million jumped 40%.

First-time buyers are clearly struggling with higher prices, falling to just a 29% share of all sales, the lowest since January 2019. Historically, first-time buyers usually make up 40% of buyers.

Yun said the market is becoming less competitive overall, with buyer traffic declining and the number of buyers waiving inspections, a competitive tactic, also falling. The number of offers on a typical home is now 3.8 compared with 4.5 a month ago.

Mortgage rates began falling in June from 3.25% down to a low of 2.78% on the popular 30-year fixed by the start of August, according to Mortgage News Daily. The drop would have helped first-time buyers most, as they tend to have the least wiggle room financially and are the most sensitive to interest rates, but clearly they are not helping enough.

Sales of newly built homes in July, which are based on signed contracts, not closings, and therefore would match up with the latest existing home sales numbers, rose slightly month to month but were down 27% from July 2020, according to the U.S. Census.

Builders have been raising prices to keep up with soaring costs for land, labor and materials. Recent earnings reports and guidance from several of the nation’s largest builders note supply chain issues that are hampering production and leading to fewer new home closings.

Correction: Existing home sales were 1.5% lower than August 2020 for the first annual decline in 14 months. An earlier version mischaracterized the drop. First-time buyers fell to a 29% share of all sales. An earlier version misstated the percentage.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has warned investors that the Federal Reserve could still be forced into a sharp policy move next year — despite its best efforts to soothe concerns over inflation and interest rates.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has already suggested that the central bank could start to dial back on its pandemic-era monetary stimulus before the end of this year. He is due to outline more details later on Wednesday at the end of the Fed’s two-day policy meeting. The U.S. central bank is also due to publish its highly-anticipated inflation and interest rates forecasts.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Dimon said that if the U.S. continues to see inflation running hot over the next few months then the central bank could be forced to act quickly.

If inflation is so high that it causes the central bank to “jam on the brakes, pull out liquidity, then you’re going to see a huge reaction. And I’m not predicting that, but it’s possible they have to do that sometime next year,” Dimon said in an interview aired on Tuesday.

“The Fed can’t always be proactive — I mean, sometimes they’re going to have to be reactive.”

The top uncertainty for the Fed has been the path of inflation. The latest data showed U.S. consumer prices were up by 5.3% in the year to August, slightly down from the 13-year high of 5.4% in July.

Powell has argued that this spike in prices is transitory. But Dimon said that if those hot inflation figures continue into December then U.S. policymakers may have to admit that at least part of the price increases are here to stay.

“I doubt [come] December, people will say it’s all transitory when it’s now been going on for quite a while,” he told CNBC-TV18, but added that concerns would be curbed if global growth remains healthy while inflation is high.

“Inflation to me, it looks like there’s a part that’s transitory and there’s part that’s not — that’s not a disaster,” he added.

Correction: This story has been updated to remove an incorrect word in a quote by Jamie Dimon.

After a Labor Day week lull, demand for mortgages rose sharply last week from homeowners and homebuyers.

Total mortgage application volume was up nearly 5% for the week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index.

Mortgage interest rates, however, didn’t move, and haven’t for the past four weeks. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($548,250 or less) remained unchanged at 3.03%, with points decreasing to 0.30 from 0.32 (including the origination fee) for loans with a 20% down payment.

Applications for a loan to purchase a home rose 2% for the week but were still 13% lower than one year ago. That annual comparison, however, is shrinking. Homebuyers really pulled back over the summer, as soaring prices and record low supply made for a toxic mix. Purchase demand last week was the highest since April.

“Housing demand is strong heading into the fall, despite fast-rising home prices and low inventory. The inventory situation is improving, with more new homes under construction and more homeowners listing their home for sale,” said Joel Kan, an MBA economist.

Applications to refinance a home loan increased 7% for the week but were 5% lower than a year ago.  

“This week’s refinance gain was driven heavily by an increase in FHA and VA applications,” Kan said.

Those are low down-payment loans offered by the federal government and tend to be favored by lower-income or first-time homebuyers.

Mortgage applications to purchase a newly built home rose unexpectedly in August, according to another report from the MBA. They usually drop in August due to seasonality, but demand appears to be coming back despite still strong price gains.

The Federal Reserve has a big meeting on tap next week, one that will be held under the cloud of an ethical dilemma and will be run by a policymaking committee that finds itself with fairly pronounced divisions about the path ahead.

Markets largely expect the Fed to follow the two-day session with no major decisions, but rather just the first but significant nods that the historically easy pandemic-era accommodation is coming to an end soon if slowly.

“Tapering” will be the word of the day when the post-meeting statement is issued Wednesday, at which time individual officials also will release their forecasts on the future arc of interest rates as well as economic growth and inflation.

All of that will be set against a backdrop of controversy: News reports in recent days indicate that Fed officials have been trading stocks and bonds that could be influenced at least indirectly by their policy decisions.

At the same time, speeches over the past several weeks indicate a schism between those who say the time is now to start tightening policy and those who’d rather wait.

For the normally staid Fed, the present circumstances are unusual and could yield some interesting dynamics.

“I think it’s embarrassing for the Fed. It had such a squeaky-clean reputation,” Greg Valliere, chief U.S. policy strategist at AGF Investments, said of the trading controversy that largely involved regional presidents Robert Kaplan of Dallas and Eric Rosengren of Boston. “But I don’t think it’s going to change policy in any regard at all. I think it will be rearview mirror pretty soon, assuming there’s no other shoe to drop.”

Valliere did note the issue will help fuel Fed critics such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who had been a vocal detractor of the Fed’s looser regulatory approach in the years since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

More than that, though, the Fed lives on its credibility, and some of the recent problems could dent that.

There’s the market credibility issue – Wall Street and investors need to believe that the Fed is at least mostly unified in its monetary policy approach to setting interest rates and associated moves that have market impact. Then there’s the public credibility – at a time when faith in Washington’s institutions has plunged, ethical missteps only add to that and can have repercussions, especially at such a delicate time.

“The ethics here look bad. They should have known better,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist for the Americas at Natixis and former chief economist of the National Economic Council during the Trump administration. “Once you lose that moral authority, it’s a problem.”

Rosengren, Kaplan and any other Fed officials who traded stocks didn’t violate laws or policies. In fact, that’s become part of the criticism leveled in some circles – that following the financial crisis the Fed didn’t do a housecleaning when it came to internal rules to make sure it avoided the kinds of conflicts that came to light during the crisis.

“Keep in mind, they already have [trading] rules they imposed on banks, for example, and yet the Fed’s governors don’t live by those same rules,” said Christopher Whalen, a Fed veteran and now chairman of Whalen Global Advisors. “After Dodd-Frank [the post-crisis banking reforms], every agency in Washington tightened up little conflicts like insider trading. And yet the Fed is somehow exempt from those rules? They look ridiculous.”

For its part, the Fed has noted that it is following rules for other government agencies and has supplemental rules as well.

Still, a spokesman for the central bank said Thursday that Chairman Jerome Powell has directed Fed staff “to take a fresh and comprehensive look at the ethics rules around permissible financial holdings and activities by senior Fed officials.”

“This review will assist in identifying ways to further tighten those rules and standards. The Board will make changes, as appropriate, and any changes will be added to the Reserve Bank Code of Conduct,” the official added.

The controversy comes against a delicate set of circumstances for the Fed.

The central bank is preparing to take its first steps to normalize policy again, after slashing benchmark interest rates to zero and doubling the size of its balance sheet through more than $4 trillion in bond purchases.

Fed officials are divided on policy: By Goldman Sachs’ count, six officials who have spoken publicly on the issue of tapering asset purchases are for it and six are against. On inflation, while Powell has said he expects price pressures to recede fairly soon, at least six Fed officials, including Governor Christopher Waller, have said they anticipate inflation to remain above the central bank’s 2% target beyond 2021.

One more complication thrown into the mix is that Powell’s term is set to expire in February, and President Joe Biden is expected to announce soon his preferred choice to lead the bank ahead. Most on Wall Street expect Powell to be nominated again, but there’s growing sentiment that Biden will move out Randal Quarles as vice chairman in charge of bank supervision and replace him with Governor Lael Brainard, who likely would use a heavier hand in bank regulation.

Amid all those pressures, Powell will have to make sure the Fed gets policy right and is able to clear away some of the contentiousness of late.

“It’s not a fait accompli that Jerome Powell is reappointed,” said LaVorgna, the Natixis economist. “The administration is understandably going to wait and see how the Fed handles the taper and what the markets do. That could be the determining factor in whether he’s reappointed.”

Retail sales posted a surprise gain in August despite fears that escalating Covid cases and supply chain issues would hold back consumers, the Census Bureau reported Thursday.

Sales increased 0.7% for the month against the Dow Jones estimate of a decline of 0.8%.

A separate economic report showed that weekly jobless claims increased to 332,000 for the week ended Sept. 11, according to the Labor Department. The Dow Jones estimate was for 320,000.

Economists had expected that consumers cut back their activity as the delta variant continued its tear through the U.S. Persistent supply chain bottlenecks also were expected to hold back spending as in-demand goods were hard to find.

The pandemic’s impact did show up in sales at bars and restaurants, which were flat for the month though still 31.9% ahead of where they were a year ago.

However, sales were strong for most areas during the month, when back-to-school shopping generally results in a pickup in activity, especially so this year as schools prepared to welcome back students after a year of remote learning.

The headline number would have been even better without a 3.6% monthly drop in auto-related activity; excluding the sector, sales rose 1.8%, also well above the 0.1% expected gain.

With fears rising over the pandemic, shoppers turned online, with nonstore sales jumping 5.3%. Furniture and home furnishing also saw a healthy 3.7% increase, while general merchandise sales rose 3.5%.

Electronics and appliances stores saw a 3.1% drop, while sporting goods and music stores fell 2.7%.

The numbers overall reflected a more resilient consumer, with sales up 15.1% from the same period a year ago.

The retail upside surprise was tempered slightly with a disappointing read on jobless claims.

Initial filings increased 20,000 from a week ago after posting a fresh pandemic-era low. Still, the four-week moving average, which accounts for weekly volatility, declined to 335,750, a drop of 4,250 that brought the figure to its lowest point since March 14, 2020, at the pandemic’s onset.

The claims total came under heavy seasonal adjustments, as the unadjusted figure showed a drop in filings of 23,331 to 262,619.

Continuing claims also declined, falling by 187,000 to 2.66 million, also a new low since Covid hit. The four-week moving average nudged lower to about 2.81 million.

However, those receiving compensation under all programs actually increased just ahead of the expiration of enhanced federal jobless benefits. That total, through Aug. 28 and thus before the expiration, rose by 178,937 to 12.1 million.

In a separate economic report, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve reported its manufacturing activity index rose 11 points to 30.7, representing the percentage difference between firms reporting expanding activity against those seeing contraction. That number was well ahead of the Dow Jones estimate of 18.7.

Prices for an array of consumer goods rose less than expected in August in a sign that inflation may be starting to cool, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

The consumer price index, which measures a basket of common products as well as various energy goods, increased 5.3% from a year earlier and 0.3% from July. A month ago, prices rose 0.5% from June.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting a 5.4% annual rise and 0.4% on the month.

Stripping out volatile food and energy prices, the CPI rose just 0.1% for the month vs. the 0.3% estimate, and 4% on the year against the expectation of 4.2%.

The 5.3% annual increase still keeps inflation at its hottest level in about 13 years, though the August numbers indicate the pace may be abating.

Markets initially rallied following the release, with stock index futures well off their morning lows. However, the market headed lower after the open.

Energy prices accounted for much of the inflation increase for the month, with the broad index up 2% and gasoline prices rising 2.8%. Food prices were up 0.4%. Energy is up 25% from a year ago and gasoline has surged 42% during the period.

However, excluding those two categories resulted in the slowest monthly CPI increase since February.

Used car and truck prices, which had been a major feeder of the headline inflation gains, fell 1.5% in August but are still up 31.9% year on year. New vehicle prices, though, rose 1.2%.

Transportation services declined 2.3% for the month.

Federal Reserve officials have been watching inflation closely but have largely said they believe this year’s burst will be temporary and due to factors that will soon fade. They cite supply chain bottlenecks, shortages of critical products like semiconductors and heightened pandemic-related demand for goods as major contributors that at some point will drift back to normal levels.

Markets largely expect the Fed to start pulling back on some of the unprecedented monetary policy help the central bank has provided during the pandemic. Fed policymakers themselves have indicated that they probably will start slowing the pace of their monthly bond purchases before the end of the year.

Investor fears about inflation have calmed as well. The Bank of America Fund Manager Survey for September indicated that a net level of respondents now expect inflation to fall over the next 12 months. As recently as April, a net 93% were expecting it to increase.

Tuesday’s report of the consumer price index could set the tone for markets ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve meeting, particularly if it is hotter than expected.

The CPI is expected to have risen 0.4% in August month over month, according to a Dow Jones consensus estimate. On a year-over-year basis, CPI would then be up 5.4%, the same pace it was in July. Excluding food and energy, CPI is expected to rise 0.3% or 4.2% year over year, according to estimates.

The data is set for release Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

Inflation data has been coming in stronger than expected, raising concerns it may be more persistent than Fed officials believe it to be. The Fed meets next Tuesday and Wednesday and is widely expected to discuss tapering its bond-buying program but not formally announce its plans until later in the year.

But some market pros say another warning about rising inflation could speed the Fed’s timetable even though August’s employment report was weaker than expected. Some market pros pushed back their expectations for a Fed announcement after August jobs gains totaled just 235,000, about 500,000 less than expected.

“If inflation is hot that would imply a little bit faster timeline from the Fed,” BMO U.S. rates strategist Ben Jeffery said. He noted he would expect a higher-than-expected pace to send interest rates higher.

CIBC Private Wealth U.S. chief investment officer David Donabedian said a hotter number could be a worry for stocks and send bond yields higher. Yields move opposite price.

He said the market will be focused closely on what components of the CPI are showing higher inflation rates.

Donabedian added he is watching to see if temporary Covid-related sources of inflation, such as hotels and airfare, began to ease, or if inflation was due to supply shortages. He said it now appears that supply chain issues are more severe than they seemed even just three months ago, and he expects inflation to continue to be an issue.

“Certainly the trend has been for the inflation number to come in above expectations. I think if that happens again, it will feed this narrative that high inflation is going to stick around longer than the Fed had been planning,” he said.

Donabedian said he sees about a 1-4 chance a hot CPI number could prompt the Fed to move sooner to announce the tapering. He said he is watching to see if things that might be more persistent, like rising rents will show up in the number.

“The Fed keeps saying they see inflation as being transitory. Yet the inflation data is getting worse rather than better,” CFRA chief investment strategist Sam Stovall said. “If it’s hotter than expected, I think the stock market’s going to continue to be soft. I think investors are trying to decide whether there’s more to this worry, than not.”

Stocks posted a mild comeback Monday following five days of losses for the Dow Jones Industrial Average partly tied to the inflation concern.

Some Fed officials in recent weeks have said they believe the central bank should start paring back its $120 billion a month bond purchases sooner rather than later. But Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has said he wants to see more strong employment reports before tapering is announced.

Stovall said he does not expect a formal announcement until November. The Fed’s move away from the bond purchase program would be its first major step away from it easy policy and ultimately sets the stage for interest rate hikes.

“If we end up with both headline and core CPI stronger than anticipated, I think certainly statements will be made regarding inflation, while it might not force them to say anything about tapering sooner,” Stovall said.

Prices that producers get for final demand goods and services surged in August at their highest annual rate since at least 2010, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The producer price index rose 0.7% for the month, above the 0.6% Dow Jones estimate, though below the 1% increase in July.

On a year-over-year basis, the gauge rose 8.3%, which is the biggest annual increase since records have been kept going back to November 2010. That came following a 7.8% move higher in July, which also set a record.

The data comes amid heightened inflation fears fed by supply chain issues, a shortage of various consumer and producer goods and heightened demand related to the Covid-19 pandemic. Federal Reserve officials expect inflationary pressures to ease through the year, but they have remained stubbornly persistent, with Friday’s numbers indicating that the trend likely will continue.

Excluding food, energy and trade services, final demand prices increased 0.3% for the month, below the 0.5% Dow Jones estimate. Still, that left core PPI up 6.3% from a year ago, also the largest record increase for data going back to August 2014.

Final demand services rose 0.7% for the month, thanks to a 1.5% gain in trade services, or the margins received by wholesalers and retailers. Transportation and warehousing costs surged 2.8%.

About one-third of the overall gain came from health, beauty and optical goods, which jumped 7.8%. Prices related to outpatient hospital care held back the gains, falling 1.5%.

Prices for final demand goods rose 1% for the month, pushed primarily by a 2.9% gain in foods which in turn came from an 8.5% surge in meat prices. Slaughtered pouy prices surged 11%. Prices fell for iron, steel and diesel fuel.

First-time filings for unemployment claims in the U.S. dropped to 310,000 last week, easily the lowest of the Covid era and a significant step toward the pre-pandemic normal, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Claims had been expected to total 335,000 for the week ended Sept. 4, according to economists surveyed by Dow Jones.

The total for the week ended Sept. 4 represented a substantial drop from the previous week’s 345,000 and is the lowest since March 14, 2020. Claims may have been still lower except for a substantial bump in Louisiana, which was hammered by Hurricane Ida and still has nearly 250,000 homes and businesses without power.

Initial filings had been trending around 215,000 prior to when the pandemic was declared in March 2020. At their peak, initial filings hit 6.1 million and held above 1 million a week until early August 2020. A year ago at this time, weekly claims averaged 881,000.

Concerns have escalated in recent weeks around the employment picture, particularly after the Labor Department reported last week that nonfarm payrolls increased just 235,000 in August, about one-third of what Wall Street had been expecting. Growth in some areas appears to have slowed amid rising fears over the Covid delta variant.

The claims numbers, though, have been averaging 339,500 over the past four weeks and lend support to a labor market recovery.

President Joe Biden in a statement said the claims report “is further evidence of a durable economic recovery.”

Continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number, dropped as well, falling to 2.78 million, a decrease of 22,000 from the previous week but higher than the FactSet estimate for 2.73 million. That also is the lowest level since March 14, 2020. The four-week moving average for continuing claims dropped to 2.84 million.

Total recipients under all unemployment programs declined to 11.93 million, a drop of 255,757 as the federal extended benefits expired Monday. That number totaled 30.4 million a year ago.

Initial claims dropped most in Missouri (-7,676), Florida (-3,886) and New Yok (-3,561), according to unadjusted data. Those declines came against gains in hurricane-ravaged Louisiana (7,259), California (5,604) and Michigan (4,823).

The claims numbers come amid a burst in job openings as employers struggle to fill open positions.

Available jobs totaled 10.9 million at the end of July, according to Labor Department numbers released Wednesday. That was easily a record high and an increase of 749,000, or 7.4%, from June.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said job creation around the country “ranged from slight to strong” from July through August.

In its periodic Beige Book report of regional economies, the central bank also noted “extensive” shortages of available workers and said companies were raising wages to try to fill positions. The Fed said growth overall “downshifted slightly to a moderate pace” for the period.