“Oil…..”

OPEC + producers stuck to the planned moderate output increases on Wednesday, although there were pressures from top consumers to raise production more quickly.  Oil prices rose on Wednesday with Brent crude rising by 0.5% at $89.59 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate crude closed higher by 0.5% to $88.67.  Tight oil supplies and geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East led to oil prices rising by about 15% this year.  On Friday of the previous week benchmarks hit their highest since October 2014, with Brent touching $91.7 and US crude touching $88.84.  US crude stocks dropped by 1.6 million barrels for the week ended 28 January according to market sources siting American Petroleum Institute figures on Tuesday. Tensions between Russia and the West also impacted crude prices. On Tuesday Vladimir Putin, the Russian President accused the West of deliberately creating a scenario enticing it into war whilst ignoring Russia’s security concerns over Ukraine.  Oil prices dropped on Thursday on profit taking with Brent crude dropping by 0.8% to $88.74 a barrel after rising by 31 cents on Wednesday.  Meanwhile US West Texas Intermediate crude was down by 0.9% at $87.42 a barrel. 

ECB Meeting

On Thursday, the European Central Bank kept its policy unchanged, on track to provide stimulus this year irrespective of inflation exceeding the bank’s 2% target and its projections.  The Bank has long stated that inflation will soon abate without its intervention and will actually drop below the 2% target by year end, such that withdrawing support now will be counterproductive.  However, investors and some policymakers have started to question this.

Bank of England Meeting

The Bank of England raised interest rates to 0.5% on Thursday as nearly half of its policymakers wanted a bigger increase amid high price pressures.  The central bank warned that inflation will soon top 7%.  The BOE said that consumer price inflation, which stood at 5.4% in December, is likely to reach 7.25% in April which could be the highest rate since the 1990s recession, whilst far away from the 2% target.  Taking a contrasting approach from that of the European Central Bank, the BOE warned that further “modest tightening” is in the pipeline, although growth will be negatively affected by global energy and goods price inflation. The BOE stated that it will unwind its 895 billion pounds quantitative easing programme by allowing a vast holding of British government bonds to roll off its balance sheet as they mature and selling its much smaller stock of corporate bonds.   

Malta:  Registered Employment 2021

A press release dated 2 February 2022 that includes administrative data provided by Jobsplus, shows that over a period of one year, the supply of labour (not including part-timers) in August 2021 increased by 2.6% reaching 242,154.  These figures are attributable to a year-on-year increase in full-time registered employment (8,399) and a decrease in registered unemployment (2,230).  When comparing August, 2021 to August, 2020, the highest increase in employment was brought by arts, entertainment, recreation and construction with 1,176 and 1,169 persons respectively.  Persons employed in the private sector increased by 6,996 persons to 189,518 while the public sector increased by 1,403 persons to 51,194. 

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