월스트리트저널 구독 추천 - Walmart, Apple, Samsung etc.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2023

◈ Employers' Health-Plan Costs to Swell

Health-insurance costs are climbing at the steepest rate in years, with some projecting the biggest increase in more than a decade will wallop businesses and their workers in 2024.

Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and Willis Towers Watson, which provided their survey results to The Wall Street Journal.

Such a boost could add significantly to the price tag for employer plans that already average more than $14,600 a year per employee, driving up health-insurance costs that are among the biggest expenses for many U.S. companies and a drain on families’ finances.

Employers worry the hike might signal a new trajectory, with health costs resuming the rapid upward march of the early 2000s. Now, though, big increases would come on top of a total annual cost per covered family that is often equivalent to the purchase price of a small car. These increases come at a time when employers are reluctant to add to out-of-pocket charges that have left some of their workers in debt or unable to get care they needed.

 

◈ Walmart Cuts Wages For Some Staff

Walmart is paying some new store workers less than it would have three months ago, a sign that employers are seeking to cut labor costs as the once-hot market for hourly staff cools.

The country’s largest private employer changed its wage structure for hourly workers in mid-July, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and Walmart employees.

Under the new structure, most new hires will earn the lowest possible hourly wage for that store. In the past, some new hires, such as those who collect items for online orders, would have made slightly more than other new staff members, such as cashiers.

The wage-structure change comes after Walmart and other large employers have for years steadily raised wages and added benefits to attract workers in a tight labor market. The retailer’s latest move suggests that the stresses companies are facing in trying to find employees are easing and that they need to find ways to offset those wage increases.

Walmart said the change allows workers to move between work groups such as food, registers, stocking or digital fulfillment without pay impacts, according to documents given to some store workers.

 

◈ Huge 'Ghost City' Haunts Troubled Chinese Developer

ISKANDAR PUTERI Malaysia - On the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia, a cluster of high-rises that was meant to house 700,000 people in luxury condominiums overlooks the sea, Nearly a decade after troubled Chinese real-estate giant Country Garden began building the enclave, it is almost completely vacant.

The $100 billion development called Forest City, meant to be the company’s flashy overseas showpiece, has instead become a target of creditors as the developer shows signs of financial distress.

Forest City is Country Garden’s most valuable asset outside China. Should the company eventually default, the unfinished megaproject could help its creditors recover an estimated $1.5 billion, said John Han, a partner at New York-based law firm Kobre & Kim.

The mostly empty Forest City project is a towering reminder of some of the core problems that have taken down China’s once-booming property sector—high borrowing and overbuilding, mixed with a streak of bad luck. Forest City embodies Country Garden’s strategy of churning out megaprojects in places with high potential and low land costs, a model that fueled its growth when China’s property market was booming.

 

◈ Chinese Exports Fall For a Fourth Month

HONG KONG—China’s exports dropped for a fourth straight month in August, bringing little relief to the country from a deepening economic malaise and weighing on the global trade outlook.

China has struggled to sustain a wave of overseas demand for Chinese-made goods that carried it through much of the three years of the pandemic, particularly as Western consumers tilted their spending back toward services and away from smartphones, furniture and other goods. Higher borrowing rates in the U.S. and other developed countries also hit consumer appetite.

Meanwhile, Chinese imports continued to shrink in August, a reflection of lackluster consumer demand even after the country loosened its longstanding Covid-related restrictions. A downturn in China’s property market has also sapped demand for raw materials used in construction.

 

◈ Apple Selloff, Rate Worries Drive Down Nasdaq, S&P

The S& P 500 declined for a third consecutive trading day, dragged down by concerns about the path of interest rates and a selloff in Apple shares.

The broad index pulled back 0.3%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.9%, its fourth straight negative session. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial was the outperformer, adding 57.54 points, or 0.2%.

This year’s expectation-defying rally has been fueled in part by optimism that the Federal Reserve might soon conclude, and even begin to reverse, its interest-rate-raising campaign as inflation wanes.

 

◈ Apple and Samsung Testing How Pricy Phones Can Get

Apple and Samsung both began breaching four digits in 2017 in the U.S. market. Six years later, they both have several models and varying memory configurations priced at that level, and they aren’t alone. Google has four configurations of its latest Pixel smartphone priced at $999 and higher.

Samsung and Google are even beginning to flirt with the $2,000 range with devices that feature foldable displays. The most expensive phone in Samsung’s lineup—the Galaxy Z Fold5 with 1 terabyte of memory—will set you back $2,159 before taxes.

Not everyone pays those prices, of course. Smartphone makers and wireless carriers have become rather sophisticated with promotions and trade-in credits on older devices that help soften the blow. But consumers are still shouldering a growing load.

According to data from IDC, average smartphone selling prices in the U.S. jumped from $409 in 2016 to $735 last year. That reflects an average annual gain of 11%—more than three times the rate of inflation in that time.

 

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