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U.S. retail sales increased strongly in April as consumers bought motor vehicles amid an improvement in supply and frequented restaurants, providing a powerful boost to the economy at the start of the second quarter, Reuters reported. The broad rise in retail sales reported by the Commerce Department on Tuesday suggested demand was holding strong despite high inflation and assuaged fears that the economy was heading into recession. Rising wages as companies scramble for scarce workers and massive savings accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic are underpinning spending. Consumers are also increasing their usage of credit cards. Retail sales rose 0.9% last month, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday. Data for March was revised higher to show sales advancing 1.4% instead of 0.7% as previously reported. April's increase in retail sales, which reflected both strong demand and higher prices, was in line with economists' expectations.

Century 21 is making a comeback as the New York City-based off-price retailer said that it will be reopening its longtime Cortlandt Street flagship store in downtown Manhattan next spring, Footwear News reported. According to a release sent by the retailer, Century 21 has teamed up with premium experiences company Legends to introduce a “revitalized shopping experience” in-store and online. The reopened Cortlandt Street location will span the four main floors of the original downtown space and will offer men’s, women’s and children’s designer apparel, footwear, outerwear, handbags, accessories, and fragrances. This announcement marks the return of the off-price retailer, which filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Sept. 2020 and led to the closures of its 13 locations across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida. According to the retailer at the time, the decision to seek chapter 11 protection came after its insurance providers failed to pay roughly $175 million under certain policies that were put in place to protect against losses stemming from business interruptions — such as those experienced as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. During the bankruptcy process in 2020, the Gindi family, which owned, operated and founded the famous off-price chain, bought back the intellectual property for $9 million, together with a silent partner. However, the business is now entirely owned by co-CEOs IG and Raymond Gindi, and their two cousins, Eddie and Isaac Gindi.

The best-laid plans for a full-time return to the office remain bedeviled by COVID-19 case rates and a workforce reluctant to go back to their commutes, according to data published this week by the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group, the New York Times reported. Just 8 percent of Manhattan office workers are back in the office five days a week, and 28 percent are still fully remote, according to the group’s new survey of more than 160 major employers in New York. On the average weekday, 38 percent of Manhattan office workers are in the office, a figure that employers expect will rise to 49 percent by September. In the group’s January survey, many employers said they thought daily attendance would exceed 50 percent by April. The new survey’s most significant finding, according to the partnership’s president, Kathryn Wylde, is that 78 percent of workplaces have adopted a hybrid model, allowing a mix of remote and in-person work. That’s a leap from 6 percent before the pandemic. Many companies realize that their push to bring workers back to the office is colliding with summer restlessness: 30 percent of those surveyed are offering additional flexibility for the coming months, like summer Fridays or the option to work fully remote in August. And then there are those trying to make the office more enticing. Nearly two-thirds are offering workers incentives to return to the office, including 43 percent that are giving free or discounted meals.

The Federal Reserve warned of deteriorating liquidity conditions across key financial markets amid rising risks from the war in Ukraine, monetary tightening and high inflation in a semi-annual report published yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. “According to some measures, market liquidity has declined since late 2021 in the markets for recently-issued U.S. cash Treasury securities and for equity index futures,” the U.S. central bank said in its Financial Stability Report. “While the recent deterioration in liquidity has not been as extreme as in some past episodes, the risk of a sudden significant deterioration appears higher than normal,” the report said. “In addition, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, liquidity has been somewhat strained at times in oil futures markets, while markets for some other affected commodities have been subject to notable dysfunction.”

U.S. job growth increased more than expected in April, underscoring the economy's strong fundamentals despite a contraction in gross domestic product in the first quarter, Reuters reported. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 428,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. Data for March was revised down to 428,000 jobs added from 431,000. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising by 391,000 jobs. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6%. The jobs-workers gap widened to an all-time high of 3.4% of the labor force from 3.1% in February. Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% after advancing 0.5% in March.

Millions of older Americans stopped working during the pandemic, far more than usual, stoking fears that the workforce had been permanently altered, but the country is close to closing the gap in early retirements, according to new data, the Washington Post reported. An estimated 1.5 million retirees have reentered the U.S. labor market over the past year, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed. That means the economy has made up most of the extra losses of retirees since February 2020, a Washington Post analysis shows. Many retirees are being pulled back to jobs by a combination of diminishing COVID-19 concerns and more flexible work arrangements at a time when employers are desperate for workers. In some cases, workers say rising costs — and the inability to keep up while on a fixed income — are factoring heavily into their decisions as well. Roughly 2.4 million additional Americans retired in the first 18 months of the pandemic than expected, making up the majority of the 4.2 million people who left the labor force between March 2020 and July 2021, according to Miguel Faria-e-Castro, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The percentage of retirees returning to work has picked up momentum in recent months, hitting a pandemic high of 3.2 percent in March, according to Indeed. In interviews with nearly a dozen workers who recently “un-retired," many said they felt comfortable returning to work now that they’ve gotten the coronavirus vaccine and booster shots. Almost all said they’d taken on jobs that were more accommodating of their needs, whether that meant being able to work remotely, travel less or set their own hours.