The Week in Business: Jobs Surge Back

More Student Loan Relief

Anyone with federal student loans hasn’t had to make payments on them for about a year. But those with private student loans haven’t gotten a break — until now. The Education Department will temporarily stop collecting payments on roughly six million loans that were made through the Federal Family Education Loan program and are now privately held. There’s a catch: Only borrowers who have defaulted will get a reprieve. The move will also temporarily prevent those in default from having their wages garnished or tax refunds seized by collectors, and will return any seized refunds or wages that had been taken since March 2020.

What’s Next? (April 4-10)

Blue Skies Ahead

The airline industry showed some promising signs of life last week. After a year of near-dormancy, domestic vacation bookings are bouncing back. United Airlines is hiring pilots again, starting with those who had conditional job offers before the pandemic or whose start dates were pushed off once travel restrictions set in. Delta Air Lines, the last major holdout in blocking middle seats to ensure space between passengers, will resume middle-seat bookings in May. And finally, the budget carrier Frontier Airlines went public, a sign that it’s anticipating a rebound.

Out of the Mud

After six days of digging and tugging, plus a boost from a full moon, the huge container ship that was lodged in the Suez Canal has been freed, and the waterway is open for business again. But the ripple effect of its blockage will be felt for weeks. The stuck boat prevented as much as $10 billion of cargo a day from moving through the canal, and cost the Egyptian government up to $90 million in lost toll revenue. Who will pay for the damage? A fleet of insurers, government authorities and lawyers are all sorting out who’s financially responsible (probably the stuck ship’s Japanese owner) and how much they’re on the hook for.

Supply, Meet Demand

As the global economy shudders back into gear, demand for fuel is rising. And there was some question of whether oil producers would increase their supply to meet it. If they chose not to, gas could be up to $4 a gallon by this summer — not exactly welcome news for anyone trying to drive to work. But OPEC and its allies put those fears to rest last week when they agreed to gradually increase production over the next three months, which should keep prices steady.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/04/business/the-week-in-business-jobs-economy.html