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Russia Seeks Gains in Ukraine Before Western Tanks Turn Up

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Russian forces pressed an offensive in eastern Ukraine on Friday, seeking to seize an advantage in the months before tanks pledged by Kyiv’s Western allies begin to arrive on the battlefield.

Ukrainian forces said on Friday they had repelled Russian attacks on Vuhledar and several other villages in the eastern Donetsk region over the preceding 24 hours. Russia also launched 148 attacks along the front line with Ukrainian forces in the southern Zaporizhzhia region over the past day using tanks, rockets and artillery, the regional military administration said. 

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had undertaken more offensive maneuvers over the past 24 hours both in Zaporizhzhia and Vuhledar, where it said it had launched strikes on Ukraine’s 72nd Brigade and had downed a Ukrainian Su-25 warplane.

The European Union on Friday, meanwhile, extended its economic sanctions on Russia for the next six months. The decision affects a swath of sanctions imposed last year, from financial sanctions on Russian banks and its central bank to export and import bans. 

There had been concerns that Hungarian Prime Minister

Viktor Orban

could push to weaken the sanctions package. In recent months, he has attacked the EU’s sanctions, especially the EU oil import embargo on Moscow, saying they are more costly for Europe than for Russia. Decisions on sanctions are taken by consensus among the EU’s 27 member states. 

While Hungary stepped back from objecting to renewing the economic sanctions, it is pushing for the EU to drop sanctions on several Russian executives who have been blacklisted by the EU, according to several EU diplomats. A decision is due in March on rolling over these sanctions. 

Ukraine’s President

Volodymyr Zelensky

discussed the situation in Vuhledar and the city of Bakhmut at a meeting with military chiefs on Thursday, he said in his nightly address.

Russian servicemen in Ukraine launch rockets in an image released Friday by the Russian Defense Ministry.



Photo:

Russian Defense Ministry Press O/Zuma Press

After months of setbacks, Russian forces earlier this month broke through Ukrainian defenses in the east to seize the town of Soledar. That has made it harder for Ukraine to keep hold of neighboring Bakhmut, which has been at the epicenter of the war for several months. The city is central to Russia’s main goal: to take over the remainder of Donetsk, and the wider industrial area known as Donbas. But the fighting there has come at huge cost for both sides.

“The more Russia loses in this battle for Donbas, the less its overall potential will be,” the Ukrainian president said. “We know what the occupiers are planning. We are countering it.”

Ukrainian officials warn that Russia is gearing up for a renewed onslaught this spring after mobilizing some 300,000 men to shore up its faltering campaign last fall. For Moscow, there is a window before tanks pledged this week by Kyiv’s Western allies arrive in Ukraine, potentially tilting the battlefield again. 

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday its forces had launched a series of strikes over the past day on Ukrainian military and infrastructure targets that had disrupted the transfer of weapons, including those from countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, being delivered to the front.

Kyiv’s allies are rushing to assemble two battalions’ worth of Leopard 2 tanks from a range of European countries after Germany and the U.S. committed to provide their own tanks. The initial battalion is expected to arrive in Ukraine within three months.

A Ukrainian serviceman in Bakhmut rests next to an armored medical vehicle.



Photo:

anatolii stepanov/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Poland, which has been at the forefront of pushing for increased military support for Ukraine, on Friday said it would send 60 upgraded T-72 tanks—half of them Polish-made PT-91 Twardy tanks—in addition to its contribution of 14 Leopards.

The U.S. has also pledged 31 M1 Abrams tanks, but those will take much longer to arrive in Ukraine because they are being procured through the defense industry instead of being pulled from existing American defense stocks. 

Mr. Zelensky has urged Western countries to speed up the delivery of tanks and the training of Ukrainian forces to use them as Russia regains initiative.

Russian officials have said the tanks won’t alter dynamics on the battlefield and will only lead to escalation in the war.

Stefano Sannino,

secretary-general of the European Union’s European External Action Service, said during a visit to Japan that German and U.S. tank provisions weren’t escalatory and were meant to help Ukrainians defend themselves, rather than making them attackers. The decision to supply them is in response to Russian escalation, Mr. Sannino said, accusing Moscow of carrying out indiscriminate attacks on civilians and cities. 

Shelling has caused damage in central Bakhmut as Ukrainian and Russian forces fight over the city.



Photo:

Emanuele Satolli for The Wall Street Journal

The tanks will enable Ukraine to destroy enemy tanks, offer greater protection and support combined operations, the U.K.’s Ministry of Defense said.

Assessing recent Russian claims of advances, the U.K.’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces had likely conducted local, probing attacks near Vuhledar in the east and Orikhiv in the Zaporizhzhia region but that Russia hadn’t achieved substantial gains. 

Russian military sources are deliberately spreading misinformation in an effort to imply that the Russian operation is sustaining momentum, the ministry said.

Write to Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com

As the U.S. and its allies start sending Abrams, Leopards and other tanks to help Ukraine, those vehicles are set to change the dynamics of the war along the front lines. WSJ examines how the tanks that Ukraine will receive from the West compare with Russia’s vehicles. Illustration: Adam Adada

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Business

Corporate Layoffs Spread Beyond High-Growth Tech Giants

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The headline-grabbing expansion of layoffs beyond high-growth technology companies stands in contrast to historically low levels of jobless claims and news that companies such as

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.

and

Airbus SE

are adding jobs.

This week, four companies trimmed more than 10,000 jobs, just a fraction of their total workforces. Still, the decisions mark a shift in sentiment inside executive suites, where many leaders have been holding on to workers after struggling to hire and retain them in recent years when the pandemic disrupted workplaces.

Live Q&A

Tech Layoffs: What Do They Mean?

The creator of the popular layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi Roger Lee and the head of talent at venture firm M13 Matt Hoffman sit down with WSJ reporter Chip Cutter, to discuss what’s behind the recent downsizing and whether it will be enough to recalibrate ahead of a possible recession.

Unlike

Microsoft Corp.

and Google parent

Alphabet Inc.,

which announced larger layoffs this month, these companies haven’t expanded their workforces dramatically during the pandemic. Instead, the leaders of these global giants said they were shrinking to adjust to slowing growth, or responding to weaker demand for their products.

“We are taking these actions to further optimize our cost structure,”

Jim Fitterling,

Dow’s chief executive, said in announcing the cuts, noting the company was navigating “macro uncertainties and challenging energy markets, particularly in Europe.”

The U.S. labor market broadly remains strong but has gradually lost steam in recent months. Employers added 223,000 jobs in December, the smallest gain in two years. The Labor Department will release January employment data next week.

Economists from Capital Economics estimate a further slowdown to an increase of 150,000 jobs in January, which would push job growth below its 2019 monthly average, the year before pandemic began.

There is “mounting evidence of weakness below the surface,”

Andrew Hunter,

senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics wrote in a note to clients Thursday.

Last month, the unemployment rate was 3.5%, matching multidecade lows. Wage growth remained strong, but had cooled from earlier in 2022. The Federal Reserve, which has been raising interest rates to combat high inflation, is looking for signs of slower wage growth and easing demand for workers.

Many CEOs say companies are beginning to scrutinize hiring more closely.

Slower hiring has already lengthened the time it takes Americans to land a new job. In December, 826,000 unemployed workers had been out of a job for about 3½ to 6 months, up from 526,000 in April 2022, according to the Labor Department.

“Employers are hovering with their feet above the brake. They’re more cautious. They’re more precise in their hiring,” said

Jonas Prising,

chief executive of

ManpowerGroup Inc.,

a provider of temporary workers. “But they’ve not stopped hiring.”

Additional signs of a cooling economy emerged on Thursday when the Commerce Department said U.S. gross domestic product growth slowed to a 2.9% annual rate in the fourth quarter, down from a 3.2% annual rate in the third quarter.

Not all companies are in layoff mode.

Walmart Inc.,

the country’s biggest private employer, said this week it was raising its starting wages for hourly U.S. workers to $14 from $12, amid a still tight job market for front line workers. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. said Thursday it plans to hire 15,000 new employees to work in its restaurants, while plane maker Airbus SE said it is recruiting over 13,000 new staffers this year. Airbus said 9,000 of the new jobs would be based in Europe with the rest spread among the U.S., China and elsewhere. 

General Electric Co.

, which slashed thousands of aerospace workers in 2020 and is currently laying off 2,000 workers from its wind turbine business, is hiring in other areas. “If you know any welders or machinists, send them my way,” Chief Executive

Larry Culp

said this week.

Annette Clayton,

CEO of North American operations at

Schneider Electric SE,

a Europe-headquartered energy-management and automation company, said the U.S. needs far more electricians to install electric-vehicle chargers and perform other tasks. “The shortage of electricians is very, very important for us,” she said.

Railroad CSX Corp. told investors on Wednesday that after sustained effort, it had reached its goal of about 7,000 train and engine employees around the beginning of the year, but plans to hire several hundred more people in those roles to serve as a cushion and to accommodate attrition that remains higher than the company would like.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

executives said Wednesday they expect U.S. labor shortages to continue to crimp production at the mining giant. The company has about 1,300 job openings in a U.S. workforce of about 10,000 to 12,000, and many of its domestic workers are new and need training and experience to match prior expertise, President

Kathleen Quirk

told analysts.

“We could have in 2022 produced more if we were fully staffed, and I believe that is the case again this year,” Ms. Quirk said.

The latest layoffs are modest relative to the size of these companies. For example, IBM’s plan to eliminate about 3,900 roles would amount to a 1.4% reduction in its head count of 280,000, according to its latest annual report.

As interest rates rise and companies tighten their belts, white-collar workers have taken the brunt of layoffs and job cuts, breaking with the usual pattern leading into a downturn. WSJ explains why many professionals are getting the pink slip first. Illustration: Adele Morgan

The planned 3,000 job cuts at SAP affect about 2.5% of the business-software maker’s global workforce. Finance chief

Luka Mucic

said the job cuts would be spread across the company’s geographic footprint, with most of them happening outside its home base in Germany. “The purpose is to further focus on strategic growth areas,” Mr. Mucic said. The company employed around 111,015 people on average last year.

Chemicals giant Dow said on Thursday it was trimming about 2,000 employees. The Midland, Mich., company said it currently employs about 37,800 people. Executives said they were targeting $1 billion in cost cuts this year and shutting down some assets to align spending with the macroeconomic environment.

Manufacturer

3M Co.

, which had about 95,000 employees at the end of 2021, cited weakening consumer demand when it announced this week plans to eliminate 2,500 manufacturing jobs. The maker of Scotch tape, Post-it Notes and thousands of other industrial and consumer products said it expects lower sales and profit in 2023.

“We’re looking at everything that we do as we manage through the challenges that we’re facing in the end markets,” 3M Chief Executive

Mike Roman

said during an earnings conference call. “We expect the demand trends we saw in December to extend through the first half of 2023.”

Hasbro Inc.

on Thursday said it would eliminate 15% of its workforce, or about 1,000 jobs, after the toy maker’s consumer-products business underperformed in the fourth quarter.

Some companies still hiring now say the job cuts across the economy are making it easier to find qualified candidates. “We’ve got the pick of the litter,” said

Bill McDermott,

CEO of business-software provider

ServiceNow Inc.

“We have so many applicants.”

At

Honeywell International Inc.,

CEO

Darius Adamczyk

said the job market remains competitive. With the layoffs in technology, though, Mr. Adamczyk said he anticipated that the labor market would likely soften, potentially also expanding the applicants Honeywell could attract.

“We’re probably going to be even more selective than we were before because we’re going to have a broader pool to draw from,” he said.

Across the corporate sphere, many of the layoffs happening now are still small relative to the size of the organizations, said

Denis Machuel,

CEO of global staffing firm Adecco Group AG.

“I would qualify it more as a recalibration of the workforce than deep cuts,” Mr. Machuel said. “They are adjusting, but they are not cutting the muscle.”

Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com and Theo Francis at theo.francis@wsj.com

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Business

U.S. GDP Rose 2.9% in the Fourth Quarter After a Year of High Inflation

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The U.S. economy grew at a solid 2.9% annual rate last quarter but entered this year with less momentum as rising interest rates and still-high inflation weighed on demand.

U.S. growth in the fourth quarter was down slightly from a 3.2% annual rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Consumer spending helped drive the fourth-quarter gain, while the housing market weakened and businesses cut back their spending on equipment.

The October-to-December period capped a year of economic slowdown with growth of 1% in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared with a year earlier, down sharply from 5.7% growth in 2021. The slowdown in part reflected a return to a more normal pace of growth after output surged amid business reopenings, fiscal stimulus and a waning pandemic in 2021.

Markets were mixed following Thursday’s release. Investors have been closely scrutinizing economic data for signs that U.S. growth is coming under pressure from the Federal Reserve’s campaign of interest-rate increases aimed at cooling the economy and bringing down high inflation.

So far in 2023, many traders and portfolio managers appear satisfied that economic activity remains strong enough that a recession this year is far from certain. That conclusion, together with cooling inflation readings, has helped fuel a modest rebound in U.S. stock indexes following last year’s washout.

The Fed is on track to slow interest-rate increases when it meets next week and debate how much higher to raise them this year as it tracks inflation’s trajectory and other economic developments.

The labor market has cooled some but continues to run strong. Jobless claims—a proxy for layoffs—fell last week and held near historic lows, despite the spread of layoff announcements beyond tech companies.

Workers received large wage gains through the end of last year. That helped consumer spending, the economy’s main engine, grow at a solid annual pace of 2.1% last quarter.

Despite some signs of resilience, recent data suggest consumers and businesses are starting to falter. Retail sales fell last month at the sharpest pace of 2022. Surveys of U.S. purchasing managers found that higher interest rates and persistent inflation weighed on demand in January in the manufacturing and service sectors. Companies cut temporary workers in December for the fifth consecutive month, a sign that broader job losses could be on the horizon.

Many economists are concerned about the possibility of a U.S. recession this year. They worry that the Fed’s efforts to curb inflation could trigger broad spending cutbacks and job losses.

“Headwinds from the big jump in interest rates, consumers cutting back on discretionary spending and weak economies overseas were big problems for the U.S. in late 2022,” said

Bill Adams,

chief economist for Comerica Bank. “I expect real GDP growth will likely turn negative in the first half of this year.”

A buildup in inventories helped drive economic growth at the end of last year. That category is volatile, though.

Final sales to private domestic purchasers, a measure of consumer and business spending that gauges underlying demand in the economy, cooled to a 0.2% annual pace in the fourth quarter from 1.1% in the third, the Commerce Department said, a sign of economic cooling in line with the Fed’s goals.

One of the most interest-rate-sensitive sectors—housing—is stumbling amid high mortgage rates. Residential investment declined throughout last year, while existing-home sales fell almost 18% in 2022 from the previous year.

Some economists say the worst of the housing downturn is over as mortgage rates are down from their peak last fall. But few expect a return to the boom times of 2021 any time soon.

The Fed had initially hoped it could bring down inflation with only a slowing in economic growth rather than an outright contraction, an outcome dubbed a “soft landing.”

“If we continue to get strong job growth and if we continue to get consumer spending on services, and companies don’t cut back on [capital expenditures], I think that adds fuel to the soft-landing story,” said Luke Tilley, chief economist at Wilmington Trust.

Consumer spending rose by 1.9% in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared with a year earlier, a slowdown from 7.2% growth in 2021 but close to 2019’s gain.

StoryBright Films, which provides photography and planning services for elopements in the Blue Ridge Mountains, photographed 16 couples’ elopements last year, down from 20 in 2021, said Mark Collett, the company’s co-owner.

Mr. Collett said his small business received many inquiries and engaged in conversations with a lot of potential clients last year. But more couples expressed concern about their financial situations and ability to pay for a big event than a year earlier.

“We would even get as far as sending them a contract to book, but then they got cold feet,” Mr. Collett said.

For 2022 marriages, clients tended to book at the bottom and top ends of the price range, rather than the middle, he added.

Purchasing power from paychecks fell for middle-income households last year, while it rose for lower-income and higher-income households. Many lower-income households benefited from wage increases and pandemic savings, while higher-income households had a large-enough savings buffer to spend aggressively.


Spending

on services

remained a

contributor.

Goods spending

(pct. pts.)

A shrinking trade

deficit continued

to drive growth,

but less so than in

the third quarter.

Residential

investment

was a drag

on growth.

Spending

on services

remained a

contributor.

Goods spending

(pct. pts.)

A shrinking trade

deficit continued

to drive growth,

but less so than in

the third quarter.

Residential

investment

was a drag

on growth.

Spending

on services

remained a

contributor.

Goods spending

(pct. pts.)

The trade deficit

continued to

drive growth, but

less so than in

the third quarter.

Residential

investment

was a drag

on growth.

Goods

spending

(pct. pts.)

Goods

spending

(pct. pts.)

Write to Sarah Chaney Cambon at sarah.chaney@wsj.com

Write to Sarah Chaney Cambon at sarah.chaney@wsj.com

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Business

Microsoft Earnings Fell Last Quarter Amid Economic Concerns

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Microsoft Corp.

MSFT -0.22%

recorded its slowest sales growth in more than six years last quarter as demand for its software and cloud services cooled on concerns about the health of the global economy.

The Redmond, Wash., company’s revenue expanded 2% in the three months through Dec. 31 from a year earlier to $52.7 billion. Its net income fell 12% to $16.4 billion. That is the company’s lowest revenue growth since the quarter that ended in June 2016.

“Organizations are exercising caution given the macroeconomic uncertainty,” Microsoft Chief Executive

Satya Nadella

said on an earnings call Tuesday.

The software company is the first of the tech titans to announce earnings for the quarter. It and others have recently announced layoffs of thousands of people to reflect a sudden lowering of expectations about future demand. Last week Microsoft announced plans to eliminate 10,000 jobs in response to the global economic slowdown, the company’s largest layoffs in more than eight years.

Microsoft said it expects around $51 billion in revenue this quarter, a 3% increase from the same quarter last year. Its shares, which had initially risen on the results in after-hours trading, gave up their gains after the company announced its guidance. 

Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business, which includes its Azure cloud-computing business, grew 18% to $21.51 billion. Azure grew 31%, which was slightly above some analysts’ expectations.

Microsoft is one of the top companies in cloud-computing services that have boomed during the pandemic. In the middle of the health crisis, Microsoft reported several quarters in a row of 50% or more year-over-year sales growth for its cloud-computing platform, the world’s No. 2 behind

Amazon.com Inc.’s

cloud. While Azure and Microsoft’s other cloud services remain the main engine for the company’s growth, demand isn’t what it was even a year ago as customers try to manage their cloud computing costs.

The company has been betting the next wave of demand for cloud services could come from more companies and people using artificial intelligence. It has been deepening its relationship with the AI startup OpenAI, the company behind the image generator Dall-E 2 and the technology behind ChatGPT, which can answer questions and write essays and poems.

“The age of AI is upon us and Microsoft is powering it,” Mr. Nadella said Tuesday.

Microsoft had been sheltered from much of the recent downturn because it gets most of its sales from companies rather than advertising and consumer spending. However, it isn’t immune to the end of pandemic trends that turbocharged demand, hiring and investment as well as economic headwinds such as high interest rates.

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Demand for Windows operating-system software has fallen with sales of the personal computers that use it. Households, companies and governments that bought computers during the pandemic are scaling back.

That was reflected in Microsoft’s personal computing segment revenue, which fell 19% to $14.24 billion. Sales related to its Windows operating system declined 39% and sales of devices like its Surface tablets fell 39%.

Worldwide PC shipments were down 29% in the fourth quarter last year compared with the previous year, according to preliminary data from the research firm Gartner Inc. Financial analysts don’t expect that trend to improve until 2024.

Photos: Tech Layoffs Across the Industry

Microsoft said its videogaming revenue fell 12% during the quarter. Videogames and Microsoft’s Xbox videogame consoles are increasingly important businesses for the company. The videogaming industry is going through a slowdown as pandemic-related restrictions ease and people spend less time at home.

The company made a huge bet on the sector a year ago with its $75 billion plan to acquire videogame giant

Activision Blizzard Inc.

Last month the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the acquisition, saying the deal would give Microsoft the ability to control how consumers beyond users of its own Xbox consoles and subscription services access Activision’s games. Microsoft then filed a rebuttal saying the deal won’t hurt competition in the videogaming industry. It could take months before it is decided in the U.S. and elsewhere whether the deal can go through.

After the close of regular stock trading on Tuesday, Microsoft shares had slipped around 18% over the previous year, broadly in line with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index.

Write to Tom Dotan at tom.dotan@wsj.com

Write to Tom Dotan at tom.dotan@wsj.com

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Business

U.S. Retail Sales Fell 1.1% in December

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Purchases at stores, restaurants and online, declined a seasonally adjusted 1.1% in December from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Sales were also revised lower in November and have fallen three of the past four months. The department seasonally adjusts monthly data to make it comparable over time. On an unadjusted basis, December is typically the peak sales month for the year.

A Federal Reserve report Wednesday found economic activity was relatively flat at the start of the year and businesses are pessimistic about growth in the months ahead. A separate Fed report showed U.S. industrial production slumped in December, led by weakness in manufacturing. A Labor Department report showed inflation was cooling.

Stocks fell Wednesday after the data releases. The S&P 500 shed 1.6%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 1.2%. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note declined 0.16 percentage point to 3.374%.

The latest data add to signs that the U.S. economy is slowing as the Fed pushes up interest rates to combat inflation. Hiring and wage growth eased in December, U.S. commerce with the rest of the world declined significantly in November, and existing-home sales have fallen for 10 straight months.

S&P Global downgraded its estimate for fourth-quarter economic growth Wednesday by a half percentage point to a 2.3% annual rate. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal this month expect higher interest rates to tip the U.S. economy into a recession in the coming year.

“The lag impact of elevated inflation weighs heavily on U.S. households, it’s very clear that the median American consumer is still reeling from the loss of wages in inflation-adjusted terms,” said

Joseph Brusuelas,

chief economist at RSM US LLP. “We’re moving towards what I would expect to be a mild recession in 2023,” he added.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President

James Bullard

said Wednesday the central bank should keep on rapidly raising interest rates and supported a half-percentage-point increase at the Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting. 

“We want to err on the tighter side to make sure we get the disinflationary process to take hold in the economy,” he said at a Wall Street Journal Live event.

Mr. Bullard’s position is at odds with several of his colleagues, who have suggested that a slower pace of rate increases would be appropriate to allow Fed officials to gauge how their aggressive pace of policy tightening has affected the economy.

Inflation, while still historically high, is showing signs of cooling as demand eases. Unlike many government reports, retail sales aren’t adjusted for inflation. 

Consumer prices advanced 6.5% from a year earlier in December, the sixth straight month of deceleration. The producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions in the economy, fell in December from the prior month, and increased at the slowest annual pace since March 2021, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

The National Retail Federation said Wednesday holiday sales were disappointing. The trade group said November and December sales rose 5.3% compared with the same period last year to $936.3 billion. In November, the NRF said it expected holiday sales to rise between 6% and 8%. The NRF figures aren’t adjusted for inflation and exclude fuel, auto and restaurant spending.

Somewhat slower inflation at the end of the year didn’t offset weaker demand, said NRF Chief economist

Jack Kleinhenz.

 Consumers are “hit with higher food prices, they are getting hit with higher service prices and they are having to make choices,” he said. Some spending was likely pulled into October as retailers kicked off deals early this year, he added. Retailers discounted heavily and early to clear excess stock from their shelves and warehouses.

Zach Carney, of Boston, said he has been cutting back on eggs and red meat because the prices are so high. “The price of eggs really jumps out at you,” the 28-year-old publicist said. Instead, he has been stocking up on value packs of chicken and buying more store-brand cereal and olive oil, which cost less than national brands.

In 2021, officials thought high inflation would be temporary. But a year later, it was still near a four-decade high. WSJ’s Jon Hilsenrath explains factors that have kept inflation up longer than expected. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds

The retail sales report showed spending declined in a number of gift-giving categories in December, including at electronics, clothing and department stores, and with online retailers, a category which includes companies such as Amazon.com Inc.

Dining out at bars and restaurants dropped 0.9% in December. Sales of furniture and vehicles, which are sensitive to higher borrowing costs, both fell sharply. The only categories to post slight growth in December were grocery, sporting goods and home improvement stores, as winter storms battered many parts of the U.S.

Some retailers have said the recently completed holiday shopping season turned out to be weaker than expected. Macy’s Inc. warned of softer sales, and Lululemon Athletica Inc. said its profit margins were squeezed as shoppers bought more items on sale.

Many retailers had benefited from surging sales earlier in the pandemic as shoppers stocked up on everything from toilet paper to home electronics and furniture, supported by government stimulus dollars. Those tailwinds have cooled, leaving retailers and product manufactures to confront slower spending in some categories and the longer term dynamics of the industry, such as a gradual shift to online spending.

Apparel retailers are especially exposed to the current pullback in discretionary spending, said Kelly Pedersen, the U.S. retail leader at PwC, a consulting firm. “Buying fashion items at department stores is discretionary,” said Mr. Pedersen. Many apparel retailers are still working to sell through excess inventory and offering deep discounts amid weak demand, he said. 

Department stores, which saw a 6.6% sales drop in December, struggled to boost sales before the pandemic quickly shifted buying habits. In 2020, a string of department stores filed for bankruptcy, including Lord & Taylor, J.C. Penney Co., Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. and Stage Stores Inc. 

Party City Holdco Inc. filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy this week while noting inflationary pressures have hampered customers’ willingness to spend. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. said this month it plans more layoffs and cost cuts amid falling sales.

The retail sales report offers a partial picture of consumer demand because it doesn’t include spending on many services such as travel, housing and utilities. The Commerce Department will release December household spending figures covering goods and services later this month.

Corporate reports out in February will add to that picture. Walmart Inc., Target Corp. and other large retailers—which sell a variety of goods such as food, clothes and décor—report quarterly earnings next month, which will include December sales.

—Suzanne Kapner and David Harrison contributed to this article.

Write to Harriet Torry at harriet.torry@wsj.com and Sarah Nassauer at Sarah.Nassauer@wsj.com

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Business

China’s Shrinking Population Is Deeper Problem Than Slow Growth for Its Economy

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Economists said China’s shrinking population poses a major future challenge for the world’s second-largest economy, while President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser sought Tuesday to restore investor confidence after one of the most disappointing growth rates in decades.

China has already rolled back the zero-Covid policies that restrained growth for much of 2022, setting the stage for a recovery this year. The U-turn, in the wake of public protests, was part of a broad policy reset aimed at boosting the economy, including an easing of regulations on the property sector and signals that the clampdown on the tech sector has ended.

Beijing is now betting on a robust rebound in economic activities as officials increasingly signal that the recent wave of infections is reaching its peak. Some government advisers say the central leadership likely will announce a growth target of between 5% and 5.5% for 2023 at the coming legislative sessions in March. China on Tuesday posted 3% growth for 2022, its second-worst growth rate since 1976.

Speaking to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr. Xi’s top economic adviser, Vice Premier Liu He, sought to send a message to investors and executives that China’s growth would return to prepandemic levels this year as the country reopens.

On a Davos panel titled “China’s Next Chapter,” speakers also projected optimism. China’s reopening and exit from its zero-Covid policy is the “most positive catalyst” for global markets this year, said

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd.

’s Chief Executive

Nicolas Aguzin.

Vice Premier Liu He sought to restore investor confidence in China at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.



Photo:

Markus Schreiber/Associated Press

“If China produces a solid growth number for 2023, 5% or 5% plus, that will actually underpin much global growth for the year to come,” said

Kevin Rudd,

president and CEO of Asia Society.

China’s recent measures, however, won’t address a host of challenges, some of which were exacerbated by the pandemic. A rapidly aging population, slowing growth in productivity, high debt levels and rising social inequality will weigh on the country’s economic ascent for decades to come, economists said.

On Tuesday, the same day that China posted 3% growth, the second-worst growth rate since 1976, it also said that for the first time since 1961, its population shrank.

China’s population dropped by 850,000 to 1.412 billion. The shift toward a shrinking population, which came faster than Beijing had projected, marks a watershed moment in China’s history with profound implications for its economy and its status as the world’s factory floor.

The demographic milestone comes when, despite its enormous size, China’s economy is still that of a middle-income, developing country, as measured by average worker incomes when compared with the U.S. and other rich-country peers. China’s leaders have long held the ambition of leapfrogging the U.S. to become the world’s biggest economy, a task made harder by this strengthening demographic headwind, economists say.

The global economy has grown to rely on China’s vast pool of workers for manufactured goods.



Photo:

Kyodonews/Zuma Press

“The likelihood of China someday overtaking the U.S. as No. 1 economy has just gone down a notch,” said Roland Rajah, lead economist at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney think tank.

The global economy has grown to rely on China’s vast pool of factory workers for manufactured goods, and its consumers represent a growing market for Western-made cars and luxury goods. A dwindling population means fewer consumers when China is under pressure to power growth through greater consumption instead of investment and exports.

Any rebound in consumption will also likely be constrained by a weak labor market and a housing downturn that has eroded the wealth of Chinese families. The jobless rate among people age 16 to 24 remained elevated at 16.7% in December, versus the peak of near 20% last summer. Growth in disposable income per capita could slow to around 4% each year in the next five years, downshifting from around 8% before the pandemic, according to David Wang, chief China economist at

Credit Suisse.

A smaller workforce will likely restrain economic growth. An economy can only grow by adding workers or producing more with the workers it has. China’s working-age population, which peaked around 2014, is expected to fall by 0.2% a year until 2030, according to S&P Global Ratings.

Productivity growth has been slowing. It slid to 1.3% on average in the 10 years through 2019, from 2.7% in the preceding decade, according to estimates from the Conference Board, a nonprofit research organization.

“It seems like it’s going to get old before it gets rich,” said Andrew Harris, deputy chief economist at Fathom Consulting in London.

Countries around the world are welcoming back Chinese tourists, once the largest source of tourism revenue globally. But even as China reopens its borders, the travel industry isn’t expecting things to bounce back to what they were just yet. Here’s why. Photo illustration: Adam Adada

There are some grounds for optimism, economists say. China could make better, more productive use of underemployed urban workers in state-owned enterprises as well as those still laboring in the countryside.

It is also adding automation and related technology to its factories rapidly, replacing or augmenting its shrinking pool of workers. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence and other high-tech sectors that could turbocharge worker productivity “is the potential out for China,” Mr. Harris said, though he added whether it will succeed or not is unclear.

Meanwhile, China remains tied to its old playbook of fueling growth by encouraging governments and companies to borrow more to fund investments, a model that economists warn will be unsustainable in the long run.

The country’s overall debt as a share of its economy reached a high during the pandemic, as local governments borrowed to finance infrastructure projects and boost the economy. As of June 2022, credit to the nonfinancial sector reached $51.8 trillion, or 295% of gross domestic product, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements.

China’s policies throughout the pandemic have focused heavily on the supply-side rather than the demand-side of the economy. Unlike many countries in the West, the Chinese government refrained from handing out cash to households, directing most of its efforts toward supporting manufacturers.

“The systemic problems that China had in its economy before Covid are still there,” said

George Magnus,

an economist and research associate at Oxford University, “In some aspects, the pandemic made them worse.”

A dwindling population means fewer consumers as China is under pressure to power growth through consumption.



Photo:

Qilai Shen/Bloomberg News

Despite the optimism expressed by some speakers in Davos, investors and corporate executives both inside and outside China remain wary of Beijing’s willingness to sufficiently roll back its restrictions on businesses of the past few years to re-embrace private capital.

Mr. Liu sought to allay those concerns during his Tuesday speech. He told the Davos crowd that a return to a planned economy, where the party-state dictates economic activities, is impossible.

But economists say Mr. Xi’s drive for self-sufficiency across a range of industries and his penchant for dictating how private business should be run will continue to sap vitality from the economy.

To achieve self-reliance in key sectors, Beijing has focused on channeling low-cost loans to favored sectors, such as semiconductors, renewable energy and pharmaceuticals. But the spending, which often involves less-productive state-owned enterprises, has also been plagued by waste and corruption, economists say, with limited evidence of real innovation.

“Xi’s desire to make sure that the Party’s control extends across society runs far deeper than his commitment to growing a market economy,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics.

—Rebecca Feng contributed to this article.

Write to Stella Yifan Xie at stella.xie@wsj.com and Jason Douglas at jason.douglas@wsj.com

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New 2023 EV tax incentives: How they work, which cars qualify, and where to get even more savings

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Quick facts about federal incentives for electric cars:

  • The government delayed some rules for EV tax credits until March 2023.
  • Select GM
    GM,
    +2.60%
    and Tesla
    TSLA,
    +2.47%
    electric vehicles became eligible (again) for federal tax incentives in January 2023.
  • Many electric cars do not qualify, but we help you find the ones that do.

Consumers considering an electric vehicle right now may want to weigh how tax credits on zero-emissions cars work and how they could affect any upcoming buying decisions.

The Inflation Reduction Act signed in August 2022 includes electric vehicle tax credits provisions set to reshape how Americans buy electric cars and plug-in hybrids.

Read on to learn the impact. We will tell you about the new changes to federal tax incentives for electric cars. The new tax credits can help defray the cost of buying a zero-emission vehicle when combined with state and local rebates.

How the new EV tax credits work

According to Kelley Blue Book research, a new electric car’s average transaction price came in at about $65,000 in November, nearly a 9% jump from a year ago. The industrywide average that includes gas-powered vehicles and electric cars reached about $48,900 in the same timeframe.

  • Extends $7,500 tax credit. The Inflation Reduction Act extends the current incentives of up to $7,500 in tax credits for select electric cars, plug-in hybrids, and hydrogen-powered vehicles that meet its qualifications. The federal government continues to update the list of qualifying vehicles.
  • Discount up front. In the future, it’s possible you can qualify to get your EV tax credit at the time of purchase on new vehicles, though if the dealership does not offer it immediately, you can still request the credit on your taxes.
  • Caps EV price tags. The new incentives restrict qualifying vehicles to low-emissions trucks, SUVs, and vans with manufacturer’s suggested retail prices of up to $80,000 and cars up to $55,000.
  • No limits for manufacturers. As of Jan. 1, 2023, manufacturers like GM and Tesla were no longer limited on incentives to the first 200,000 EVs sold, which was the case under the old tax credits.
  • Used electric vehicle rebate. Anyone considering a used electric car under $25,000 could obtain a new $4,000 tax credit, subject to income and other limits. To qualify, used cars must be two model years old. The vehicle also must be purchased at a dealership. The vehicle also only qualifies once in its lifetime. Purchasers of used vehicles can only qualify for one credit every three years, and to qualify, individuals must make $75,000 or less, or $112,500 for heads of households and $150,000 for joint return filers. The credit ends in 2032.
  • Income caps to qualify. The rebates are limited to individuals reporting adjusted gross incomes of $150,000 or less on taxes, $225,000 for those filing as head of household, and $300,000 for joint filers.
  • Ineligible cars become eligible. Additionally, the measure allows carmakers like Tesla and General Motors, which had run out of available credits under the old plan, to be eligible for them again in January 2023. However, many of their products would still not qualify due to car price caps.
  • New rules on manufacturing locations. To qualify for the subsidy, electric car batteries must be manufactured in the U.S., Canada, or Mexico, while the batteries’ minerals and parts must also come from North America to qualify. Cars with Chinese-made battery components would be ineligible. These rules render many current EVs ineligible. This requirement phases in over time. That means some cars eligible now could become ineligible over time unless manufacturers change their supply chains. However, the U.S. Treasury Department delayed until March the regulations that govern where battery minerals and parts must be sourced.
  • Some leased vehicles may qualify.
  • Hydrogen fuel-cell cars remain eligible. The $7,500 credit also applies to hydrogen fuel-cell cars like the Toyota Mirai or Hyundai Nexo. However, those make sense only for buyers who live near one of America’s few hydrogen refueling stations. Those stations are mostly concentrated in California. 

Learn more: What is EV, BEV, HEV, PHEV? Here’s your guide to types of electric cars

What the old EV tax credits provided

Before the Inflation Reduction Act, buyers could claim a tax credit on just the first 200,000 electric cars a manufacturer sold. That meant that the most popular models lost the credit. The incentive did not restrict income or purchase prices.

The old tax credits also applied to plug-in hybrids and fuel cell vehicles, but not used vehicles.

President Biden signed the act into law on Aug. 1, 2022. Most of its provisions kicked in on Jan. 1, 2023. That created a brief window when the law required qualifying cars to be built in North America, but the 200,000-car-per-manufacturer limit still applied. If you bought an electric car between Aug. 16, 2022, and Jan. 1, 2023, it qualified for a credit only if it was built in North America by a manufacturer that hadn’t sold 200,000 or more qualifying cars.

Tesla and General Motors’ electric car tax credits were reinstated in January. So if you have your heart set on a Tesla Model 3 or perhaps a Cadillac Lyriq, now is the time to act.

Also see: 2.1 million EVs and plug-in hybrids on U.S. roads, and here’s how much gas they’ve saved

List of 2023 electric vehicles that qualify

According to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, this is the latest list of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles that qualify if purchased after Jan. 1, 2023. The site notes that several manufacturers had yet to submit information on specific eligible makes and models and for users to check back for updated information.

Vehicle MSRP Limit
Audi Q5 TFSI e Quattro PHEV $80,000
BMW
BMW,
+0.07%
330e 		$55,000
BMW X5 eDrive 45e $80,000
Ford
F,
+2.69%
Escape PHEV 		$80,000
Ford E-Transit $80,000
Ford F-150 Lightning $80,000
Ford Mustang Mach-E $55,000
Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring $80,000
Lincoln Corsair Grand Touring $55,000
Chevrolet Bolt EV $55,000
Chevrolet Bolt EUV $55,000
Cadillac Lyriq $55,000
Nissan
NSANY,
+2.85%
Leaf 		$55,000
Rivian
RIVN,
-0.97%
R1S 		$80,000
Rivian R1T $80,000
Chrysler Pacifica PHEV $80,000
Jeep Wrangler 4xe $80,000
Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe $80,000
Tesla Model 3 $55,000
Tesla Model Y 7-Seat Variant $80,000
Volkswagen
VWAGY,
+2.00%
ID.4 		$55,000
Volvo
VLVLY,
+3.20%
S60 T8 Recharge PHEV 		$55,000
State and local incentives near you

Though the federal government’s effort makes up the lion’s share of government EV discounts, some states and local governments offer incentive programs to help new car buyers afford something more efficient. These can be tax credits, rebates, reduced vehicle taxes, single-occupant carpool-lane access stickers, and exemptions from registration or inspection fees.

States like California and Connecticut offer broad support for electric vehicle buyers. However, Idaho, Kentucky, and Wyoming are among the states offering no support to individual EV buyers. The U.S. Department of Energy maintains an interactive list of state-level incentives, while Plug In America posts an interactive map of EV incentives.

Also read: What California’s ban on gas cars could mean for you—even if you don’t live there

Your electric utility may help

Lastly, it’s not just governments that can help you with the cost of a new EV. Some local electric utilities provide incentive programs to help buyers get into electric vehicles. After all, they’re among the ones that benefit when you turn your fuel dollars into electricity dollars.

Read: 3 reasons the Hyundai Ioniq 6 makes the Tesla Model 3 seem a bit boring

Some offer rebates on cars. Others offer discounts on chargers or install them free when you sign up for off-peak charging programs.

For example, the Nebraska Public Power District offers a $4,000 rebate to customers who purchase a new electric car.

This story originally ran on KBB.com. 

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Hiring, Wage Gains Eased in December, Pointing to a Cooling Labor Market in 2023

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The U.S. labor market is losing momentum as hiring and wage growth cooled in December, showing the effects of slower economic growth and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate increases.

After two straight years of record-setting payroll growth following the pandemic-related disruptions, the labor market is starting to show signs of stress. That suggests 2023 could bring slower hiring or outright job declines as the overall economy slows or tips into recession.

Employers added 223,000 jobs in December, the smallest gain in two years, the Labor Department said Friday. Average hourly earnings were up 4.6% in December from the previous year, the narrowest increase since mid-2021, and down from a March peak of 5.6%.

All told, employers added 4.5 million jobs in 2022, the second-best year of job creation after 2021, when the labor market rebounded from Covid-19 shutdowns and added 6.7 million jobs. Last year’s gains were concentrated in the first seven months of the year. More recent data and a wave of tech and finance-industry layoffs suggest the labor market, while still vibrant, is cooling.

“I do expect the economy to slow noticeably by June, and in the second half of the year we’ll see a greater pace of slowing if not outright contraction,” said

Joe Brusuelas,

chief economist at RSM U.S.

Friday’s report sent markets rallying as investors anticipated it would cause the Fed to slow its pace of rate increases. The central bank’s next policy meeting starts Jan. 31. The Fed’s aggressive rate increases aimed at combating inflation didn’t significantly cool 2022 hiring, but revisions to wage growth showed recent gains weren’t as brisk as previously thought.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 700.53 points, or 2.13%, on Friday. The S&P 500 Index was up 2.28% and NASDAQ Composite Index advanced 2.56%. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield declined 0.15 percentage point to 3.57%. Yields fall as bond prices rise.

The unemployment rate fell to 3.5% in December from 3.6% in November, matching readings earlier in 2022 and just before the pandemic began as a half-century low. Fed officials said last month the jobless rate would rise in 2023. December job gains were led by leisure and hospitality, healthcare and construction.

Historically low unemployment and solid hiring, however, might mask some signs of weakness. The labor force participation rate, which measures the share of adults working or looking for work, rose slightly to 62.3% in December but is still well below prepandemic levels, one possible factor that could make it harder for employers to fill open positions.

The average workweek has declined over the past two years and in December stood at 34.3 hours, the lowest since early 2020.

Hiring in temporary help services has fallen by 111,000 over the past five months, with job losses accelerating. That could be a sign that employers, faced with slowing demand, are reducing their employees’ hours and pulling back from temporary labor to avoid laying off workers.

The tech-heavy information sector lost 5,000 jobs in December, the Labor Department report showed. Retail saw a 9,000 rise in payrolls, snapping three straight months of declines.

Tech companies cut more jobs in 2022 than they did at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to layoffs.fyi, which tracks industry job cuts. On Wednesday,

Salesforce Inc.

said it would cut 10% of its workforce, unwinding a hiring spree during the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal reported that

Amazon.com Inc.

would lay off 18,000 people, roughly 1.2% of its total workforce. Other companies, such as

Facebook

parent

Meta Platforms Inc.,

DoorDash Inc.

and

Snap Inc.,

have also recently cut positions.

Companies in the interest-rate-sensitive housing and finance sectors, including

Redfin Corp.

,

Morgan Stanley

and

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.,

have also moved to reduce staff.


Months where overall jobs gained

Months where overall jobs declined

By the end of 2022, the U.S. had added nearly 2 million jobs since the end of 2019

More than 20 million jobs were lost near the start of the pandemic

Employment returns to prepandemic level

A monthly gain of more than 4 million jobs

Months where

overall jobs gained

Months where

overall jobs declined

By the end of 2022, the U.S. had added nearly 2 million jobs since the end of 2019

More than 20 million jobs were lost near the start of the pandemic

Employment returns to prepandemic level

A monthly gain of more than 4 million jobs

Months where

overall jobs gained

Months where

overall jobs declined

By the end of 2022, the U.S. had added nearly 2 million jobs since the end of 2019

More than 20 million jobs were lost near the start of the pandemic

Employment returns to prepandemic level

A monthly gain of more than 4 million jobs

Months where

overall jobs gained

Months where

overall jobs declined

By the end of 2022, the U.S. had added nearly 2 million jobs since the end of 2019

More than 20 million jobs were lost near the start of the pandemic

Employment returns to prepandemic level

A monthly gain of more than 4 million jobs

Months where

overall jobs gained

Months where

overall jobs declined

By the end of 2022, the U.S. had added nearly 2 million jobs since the end of 2019

More than 20 million jobs were lost near the start of the pandemic

Employment returns to prepandemic level

A monthly gain of more than 4 million jobs

Other data released this week point to a slowing U.S. economy. New orders for manufactured goods fell a seasonally adjusted 1.8% in November, the Commerce Department said Friday. Business surveys showed a contraction in economic activity in December, according to the Institute for Supply Management. Manufacturing firms posted the second-straight contraction following 29 months of expansion, and services firms snapped 30 straight months of growth in December.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal last fall saw a 63% probability of a U.S. recession in 2023. They saw the unemployment rate rising to 4.7% by December 2023.

“We’ve obviously been in a situation over the past few months where employment growth has been holding up surprisingly well and is slowing very gradually,” said

Andrew Hunter,

senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “There are starting to be a few signs that we’re maybe starting to see a bit more of a sharp deterioration.”

Max Rottersman, a 61-year-old independent software developer, said he had been very busy with consulting jobs during much of the pandemic. But that changed over the summer when work suddenly dried up.

“I’m very curious to see whether I’m in high demand in the next few months or whether—what I sort of expect will happen—there will be tons of firing,” he said.

Despite some signs of cooling, the labor market remains exceptionally strong. On Wednesday, the Labor Department reported that there were 10.5 million job openings at the end of November, unchanged from October, well more than the number of unemployed Americans seeking work.

Some of those open jobs are at Caleb Rice’s home-renovation business in Calhoun, Tenn., which has been consistently busy since the start of the pandemic. The small company has raised pay and gone to a four-day week in an effort to hold on to workers.

“If I could get three more skilled hands right now, I’d be comfortable,” Mr. Rice said. “The way it goes is I’ll hire five, two will show up and of those two one won’t be worth a flip.”

Fed officials have been trying to engineer a gradual cooling of the labor market by raising interest rates. Officials are worried that a too-strong labor market could lead to more rapid wage increases, which in turn could put upward pressure on inflation as firms raise prices to offset higher labor costs.

The central bank raised rates at each of its past seven meetings and has signaled more rate increases this year to bring inflation down from near 40-year highs. Fed officials will likely take comfort in the slowdown in wage gains, which could prompt them to raise rates at a slower pace, Mr. Brusuelas, the economist, said.

“We’re closer to the peak in the Fed policy rate than we were prior to the report, and the Fed can strongly consider a further slowing in the pace of its hikes,” he said. “We could plausibly see a 25-basis-point hike versus a 50-basis-point hike at the Feb. 1 meeting.”

Write to David Harrison at david.harrison@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications
A graphic in an earlier version of this article showing the change in nonfarm payrolls since the end of 2019 was incorrectly labeled as change since January 2020. (Corrected on Jan. 6)

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Investors Brace for More Market Tumult as Interest Rates Keep Rising

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The stock market just finished a bruising year. Many market players don’t expect things to get better any time soon.  

Analysts at some of the biggest U.S. banks predict the stock market will retest its 2022 lows in the first half of the new year before beginning to rebound. Many investors say the ramifications of the Federal Reserve’s higher rates are just beginning to ripple through markets.

The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates to the highest levels since 2007, stoking mammoth swings across global markets and a steep selloff in assets from stocks and bonds to cryptocurrencies. The tumult that erased more than $12 trillion in value from the U.S. stock market—the largest such drawdown since at least 2001—is expected to continue as rates keep rising.

The S&P 500 ended the year down 19% after the conditions evaporated that had paved the way for years of a nearly uninterrupted stock-market rally and a run in some of the most speculative bets. Analysts at Goldman Sachs expect the S&P 500 to end 2023 at 4000, about a 4% rise from where it ended 2022. 

The volatility has been especially punishing for the market’s behemoths. Five big technology stocks accounted for about a quarter of the U.S. stock market’s total declines last year, a bruising selloff reminiscent of the dot-com bust two decades ago. 

Cryptocurrencies tumbled, splashy initial public offerings all but came to a halt and blank-check companies imploded to end the year, a stunning reversal of the mania that swept markets in the previous two years. 

“We are in a world where interest rates exist again,” said

Ben Inker,

co-head of asset allocation at Boston money manager GMO, which oversees $55 billion in assets. 

One of the biggest flip-flops occurred under the market’s surface. Investors abandoned the flashy tech and growth stocks that had propelled that market’s gains over the previous decade. 

And value stocks—traditionally defined as those that trade at a low multiple of their book value, or net worth—staged a revival after years of lackluster returns. 

The Russell 3000 Value index outperformed the Russell 3000 Growth index by almost 20 percentage points, its largest margin in Dow Jones Market Data records going back to 2001. 

Now, Mr. Inker and other investors—hunting for opportunities after an abysmal year for both stocks and bonds—say it is just the beginning of a big stock-market rotation. 

Money managers say they are positioning for an environment that bears little resemblance to the one to which many grew accustomed after the last financial crisis. The era of ultralow bond yields, mild inflation and accommodative Fed policy has ended, they say, likely recalibrating the market’s winners and losers for years to come.  

“A number of investors were trying to justify nosebleed valuation levels,” said

John Linehan,

a portfolio manager at

T. Rowe Price.

Now, “leadership going forward is going to be more diverse.” 

The Fed is set to keep raising interest rates and has indicated that it plans to keep them elevated through the end of 2023. Many economists forecast a recession ahead, while Wall Street remains fixated on whether inflation will recede after repeatedly underestimating its staying power.

Mr. Linehan said he expects the run in value stocks to continue and sees opportunities in shares of financial companies, thanks to higher interest rates. Others say energy stocks’ stellar run isn’t over just yet. Energy stocks within the S&P 500 gained 59% last year, their best stretch in history.

Some investors are positioning for bond yields to keep rising, potentially dealing a bigger blow to tech shares. Those stocks are especially vulnerable to higher rates because in many cases they are expected to earn outsize profits years down the road, a vulnerability in a world that values safe returns now. 

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note ended 2022 at 3.826%, the biggest one-year increase in yields since at least 1977, while bond prices tumbled. From risky corporate bonds to safer municipal debt, yields rose to some of their highest levels of the past decade, giving investors more choices for parking their cash. 

“I don’t think this next decade is going to be led by technology,” said

Mark Luschini,

chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott. “This one-size-fits-all notion that you just buy a broad technology index or the Nasdaq-100 has changed.”

The Fed has indicated that it plans to keep rates elevated through the end of 2023.



Photo:

Ting Shen/Bloomberg News

The tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 index lost 33% in 2022, underperforming the broader S&P 500 by the widest margin since 2002. 

Investors yanked about $18 billion from mutual and exchange-traded funds tracking tech through November, on track for the biggest annual outflows on record in Morningstar Direct data going back to 1993. Funds tracking growth stocks recorded $94 billion in outflows, the most since 2016.

Meanwhile, investors have taken to bargain-hunting in the stock market, piling into value funds. Such funds recorded more than $30 billion of inflows, drawing money for the second consecutive year.

“Profitability and free cash flow are going to be very important” in the coming year, said Tiffany Wade, senior portfolio manager at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. 

Ms. Wade said she expects the Fed to be more aggressive than many investors currently forecast, leading to another rocky year. If the Fed puts a pause on raising interest rates over the next year, she thinks growth stocks might see a bounce.

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Other investors are heeding lessons from the years following the bursting of the tech bubble, when value stocks outperformed their growth counterparts.

Even after last year’s bruising declines, the technology sector trades at a wide premium to the S&P 500. Stocks in the energy, financial, materials and telecommunications sectors still appear cheap compared with the broader benchmark, according to Bespoke Investment Group data going back to 2010. 

Plus, big technology companies face stiffer competition and potentially tougher regulation, a setup that may disappoint investors who have developed lofty expectations for the group. 

Their run of impressive sales growth will likely sputter as well, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a recent note. Aggregate sales growth for megacap technology stocks is forecast to have risen 8% in 2022, below the 13% growth for the broader index. 

“I just don’t think the prior regime’s winners are going to be tomorrow’s winners,” said Eddie Perkin, chief investment officer of Eaton Vance Equity. “They’re still too expensive.”

Write to Gunjan Banerji at gunjan.banerji@wsj.com

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Stay for Pay? Companies Offer Big Raises to Retain Workers

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Workers who stay put in their jobs are getting their heftiest pay raises in decades, a factor putting pressure on inflation.

Wages for workers who stayed at their jobs were up 5.5% in November from a year earlier, averaged over 12 months, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. That was up from 3.7% annual growth in January 2022 and the highest increase in 25 years of record-keeping.

Faster wage growth is contributing to historically high inflation, as some companies pass along price increases to compensate for their increased labor costs. Prices rose at their fastest pace in 40 years earlier in 2022. Inflation has cooled in recent months but remains high. Federal Reserve officials are closely monitoring wage gains as they consider future interest-rate increases to slow the economy and bring down inflation. 

Employees who changed companies, job duties or occupations saw even greater wage gains of 7.7% in November from a year earlier. The prospect that employees might leave for bigger paychecks is a main reason companies are raising wages for existing employees. 

Many workers aren’t feeling the pay gains, though. Wages for all private-sector workers declined by 1.9% over the 12 months that ended in November, after accounting for annual inflation of 7.1%, according to the Labor Department.

Workers in sectors such as leisure and hospitality can easily find job openings that might pay more, making it more enticing to switch jobs, said

Layla O’Kane,

senior economist at Lightcast.

“If I can see that the Burger King down the street is offering $22 an hour, and I’m making $20 an hour at the Dunkin’ Donuts that I work at, then I know very clearly what my opportunity cost is,” she said. “Employers are reacting to that and saying, ‘Well, we’re going to increase wages internally because we don’t want to lose the staff that we’ve already trained.’”

Employee bargaining power has increased as the economy rebounded from the pandemic, likely emboldening some employees to ask for wage increases from their current employers, Ms. O’Kane added. 

Alexandria Carter,

a billing specialist and accountant at an insurance company in Baltimore, received a promotion and a small pay bump earlier in 2022. After her year-end performance review, she received another 7% pay increase to reward her for her progress, and her bosses told her about their plans for her to keep moving up in the company. 

That was a contrast with some previous jobs she has held, where praise and pay raises were less forthcoming.

“They were telling me that I’m excelling in my position, and I just got it,” she said. “To have that recognition and that they notice the work I’ve put in and to be rewarded, it’s just nice.”

Alexandria Carter, a Baltimore billing specialist and accountant, got a promotion and two pay increases this past year.



Photo:

Alexandria Carter

There are signs wage gains are beginning to ease as the tight labor market loosens a bit. Average hourly earnings were up 5.1% in November from a year earlier, slowing from a recent peak of 5.6% in March. Many analysts expect wage growth could cool further in coming months.

In industries with high demand for workers, “companies are prepared for wage growth to match inflation,” said

Paul McDonald,

senior executive director at Robert Half, a professional staffing company. “As inflation comes down, it will be more in line with what wage growth has been.”

The consumer-price index, a measurement of what consumers pay for goods and services, climbed 7.1% in November from a year earlier, down from 7.7% in October. The pace built on a trend of moderating price increases since June’s 9.1% peak.

Still, wage pressures will likely continue in a competitive job market where poaching remains common. More than half of professionals feel underpaid, and four in 10 workers would leave their jobs for a 10% raise elsewhere, according to a Robert Half survey released in September.

Famous Toastery, a Charlotte, N.C.-based breakfast, brunch and lunch chain, is raising pay faster than ever before, said

Mike Sebazco,

the company’s president. Across the eight company-owned locations, wages for existing kitchen staff members are up about 15% from a year earlier.

“We didn’t want to be as easy to poach,” he said. It isn’t uncommon for managers from other companies to come to Famous Toastery’s dumpster pads to tell the breakfast chain’s workers, “‘Hey, come work for me, and I’ll give you an extra $2 an hour,’” Mr. Sebazco said.

To help cover higher labor costs, Famous Toastery raised menu prices in August for items such as the Western omelet composed of ham, roasted peppers, caramelized onions and American cheese. 

“Bacon and eggs and a lot of produce items will go up and down, and you can weather that,” Mr. Sebazco said. “We’ve never really experienced labor increases such as this.”

Many businesses in the Boston Fed district cited labor costs as a bigger source of inflationary pressure for 2023 than other types of expenses, according to the central bank’s collection of business anecdotes known as the Beige Book. 

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Most business executives remain confident that they can pass along wage increases to consumers in the form of higher prices, said

Lauren Mason,

senior principal at consulting firm Mercer LLC. “This makes compensation investments somewhat easier to absorb,” she said.

Wage and price increases can feed off each other. In fact, higher inflation is pushing some workers to seek cost-of-living increases, helping contribute to wage growth among job stayers, economists say.

More broadly, pay is rising for both job stayers and switchers because companies can’t find enough workers. Across the economy, job openings—at 10.3 million in October—far exceeded the 6.1 million unemployed Americans looking for work that month.

Companies are using merit-pay increases to hold on to employees and minimize the potential productivity drain of recruiting and training new hires. Firms are budgeting more for merit-pay increases in 2023 than they have in 15 years, according to a Mercer survey of more than 1,000 companies. 

Daniel Powers,

a recent college graduate, received a 10% year-end raise at a management consulting firm in Chicago, after starting out with a six-figure salary when he was hired in September.

“They understand the realities of the market—there’s no false illusion of, ‘we’re family here,’” Mr. Powers said of his firm’s management.

Write to Gabriel T. Rubin at gabriel.rubin@wsj.com and Sarah Chaney Cambon at sarah.chaney@wsj.com

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