Category: Global Economics

Pros and Cons of Being Employed vs. Self-Employment

Update Dec 14, 2024: Added Newsletter Email Archive at End of Post.

After having attempted to operate a few businesses over the course of my education and now post graduation, while also working some good jobs and some not so good jobs I have learned a few things that I thought might be interesting to discuss in this next blog post. What are the pros and cons to each way of doing things and what are some things that you should think about if you’re considering one or the other. Let’s start with the pros of being employed.

The Case For Staying Employed:

The nice thing about being employed, is that most of the time, someone else is telling you what needs to be done, depending on the job you can somewhat turn off your brain when it comes to deciding what to do day to day. When I’ve done self employed work, it becomes much more challenging to know what to prioritized, do you focus on marketing? Do you focus on building systems? Do you try to schmooze clients to make sure that you have clients going forward? The answer is yes, yes, and yes. You need to juggle many more priorities with self-employment that can compete for your time. When you’re employed, hopefully, you have a team to work with, while being self-employed inherently means that you are likely working solo at least in the beginning, so you don’t really have other people to lean on.

The Ugly Truth of Entrepreneurship

This goes well into my next point, when you are self-employed it can often be lonely work and this can be very demotivating, you need to build up a team of people or business associates who are doing, or trying to do a similar thing to you. No one can accomplish anything alone, so it’s important to get people on your team who you can consult with and bounce ideas off of, and often times that person will not be your group of friends who are working regular jobs and who aren’t concerned with what happens in a business. This doesn’t mean to stop hanging out with your regular friends, in fact, you’ll probably need them more than ever. It just means that you need to make sure that you are also building up a network of like minded people who can better relate to the struggles that you will inevitably go through while trying to launch a business. So lets call this a bit of a pro for being an employee, often the company is looking for a specific culture and if you fit in the culture you can make some great friends. At the very least you’ll probably be on ok terms with the people you work with and maybe even have a few people who are doing a very similar job to bounce ideas off of. Forced friends as I like to say. Obviously, if you don’t like the people you work with it can also suck just as much as having no people to work with, but at least in theory there is the option to find a new place of work that again doesn’t require you managing so many competing priorities. Regardless of whichever path you choose, I’ve learned it extremely difficult to go anywhere if you don’t build relationships or work on your ability to build relationships. In our current social media isolation era it’s easy to think all the answers are online, but the person to person component is still one of the most important factors in having both a successful business and a successful career.

Income “Potential” is Only Potential:

You will frequently see online that the way entrepreneurship or self-employment is sold nowadays is higher income potential. The important word in that phrase is “potential”. There is always potential, in whatever you do, but this seriously undersells the sacrifices that you have to make in order to reach that potential. The phrase entrepreneur comes from the phrase for someone who creates something new. So if someone is selling you on a form of self employment that is cut and paste, run away, every type of entrepreneurship is its own battle and everyone’s path is a bit different. I’m all for learning how people have come before you, but the most important thing in entrepreneurship is being a constant experimenter and being ok with constantly failing and trying something new until you find what works for you. There is so much free information, and so much information in books that you can read (for FREE, if you get it from the library) that you really should not be spending a significant amount of money when you are starting out to get your feet off the ground. The best use of money is running a short marketing experiment for the service or product you are selling for minimum a month and trying to learn from the experience and iterate.

Patience is Extremely Important

This brings my to my next point, specifically related to entrepreneurship, is that when you are trying something new, you have to accept the fact that it will take time to see the results of your experiments. You can’t expect an instant sale if you’re just running your first facebook ad, or after knocking on your first door. It’s a long, iterative, slog. A lot of entrepreneurship simply comes down to how many times you are willing to do the same thing over and over, rejection after rejection, until you finally see results. You have to be, or become someone who doesn’t give up easily.

The Rejection Goal – An Entrepreneurs Lifeline

I read a book recently, Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan, in it Noah relates the story of his father who was a door to door salesperson and his frame of mind when it came to getting rejected was to set a “rejection goal” every single day. Inevitably, within that rejection goal, you may have one or two people who are actually interested in talking to you, and one or two people who are interesting in what you are selling. If you make the goal the number of times you can be rejected, rather than seeing rejection as having failed, you are much more likely to get somewhere with your business. Contrast this to a job in which your goal is to create something, or build something. The only person likely to reject you is your boss or manager. If you are somewhat more client facing then you may also have to face rejection every day, but it’s likely that your income doesn’t completely depend on this one single client. When you are self employed and looking for work, it can be easy to feel like your income does rely on one single client and this can put you in a mindset of scarcity and fear, and while a little fear might be good to help you get motivated in the morning, too much can be debilitating. So it’s important to approach a business with the mindset of working with multiple clients, and even before you start a business trying to see if there might be potential clients that would want what you are selling is a great idea to validate a business idea, even better if they give you a deposit for the thing you are selling. It’s important to not rely too heavily on one single client for all of your income for all the reasons I stated above.

Employees Can Be Self Employed Too

Another pro for being an employee is that, frequently, there is a path to becoming self-employed. If you work in an industry long enough or become respected enough in the skills that you have and the things that you do, and have people that you know would want to continue working with you specifically. Then you have the foundation of a good business, and you’d be doing what you are already doing which would reduce the overall amount of skills that you’d have to pick up that relate to entrepreneurship, and you may be able to avoid marketing altogether and simply operate off referrals. From this point of view being employed can be very beneficial, but you’d have to work in an industry where your skills are important to the job, not just being a warm body that most anyone can replicate. The more regulation, the more difficult, the more qualifications you need the better because it will make the work that you do and the skills that you have valuable. I’m going to point to something that doesn’t immediately jump to most people’s minds when they things of “business” and that is healthcare. Depending on your healthcare profession, there may be a path to either a very high income, or opening your own practice, and “professional” degree in which you can open a practice or some kind can be a good path to self-employment if you work in the industry for a while first because there will be demand for your skills.

No Matter What You Do You Can’t Do It Alone:

There is no real right or wrong way to start a business, but there is a right and wrong mindset to operate from, ultimately, you are going to be working with people, and people involve relationships, so if there’s any one skill you absolutely need or need to learn its how to be a relational person, everything other skill or talent you have is not useful if you have no one to show it or sell it to. This doesn’t mean that you can’t create a business from nothing, there are lots of software companies that pretty much exclusively exist in website or app form. But these companies are still relational companies because they are solving a problem for people, without the people there would be no company. So it’s fine to make software, to learn skills that you can sell, to do something similar to what someone has done before, but at the end of the day it will always come down to how do you reach people and get them interested enough to pay you for the thing that you are doing or the product that you are selling. I’ll leave the discussion here for now, I’m still learning and reading a lot about building businesses and becoming a better communicator and working to build better relationships. All of these little things are important in the grand scheme of life and in the grand scheme of business as well.

Keep investing,

Oliver Foote

Newsletter Email Archive Sent: July 23, 2024:

Newsletter #18: Employment vs. Self-Employment Pros and Cons, Manhattan Real Estate, etc.

This Weeks Blog Post:

Pros and Cons of Being Employed vs. Self-Employment:

  • Employment is a great way to start your own business
  • There are many things about self employment that people don’t mention when they are trying to sell you on something, you need to do it for the right reasons and realize the responsibilities that come with it
  • Dealing with rejection and making it a positive

Read the full blog post here: https://oliverfoote.ca/pros-and-cons-of-being-employed-vs-self-employment/

Real Estate News:

  • We are officially in the summer months where the market slows down as people go on vacation, so I’m just going to say that there’s not much to report right now since the last newsletter
  • The Toronto Honda Indy was in town last weekend, and as a somewhat new racing nerd I was able to stop by and see them do a couple laps last Friday after going to see a metal concert and then flying out Friday to see my family in Queens, New York and returning today (which is why this newsletter is late). On a related note, seeing their real estate prices made me grateful for Toronto prices, if you can believe it.
  • Another thing I noticed being in New York, although I was mostly in pricier parts of town and airports, is that things are really expensive, even the supposedly cheap spots. Inflation in the US is definetly a real thing, as it is here. But, seeing it first hand and also thinking in currency exchanged units really drove the point home.
  • I also got to see the Wall St Bull and the NYSE and all nerd out a bit about the financial district, as a bit of a finance nerd that was a must see for me. I also learned from someone who works at the 1 World Trade Center Tower that the tenants of the building after COVID reduced their footprints by around half thanks to all the work from home stuff that happened, and they have had to either sublease the rest of their space or eat the loss. But it’s interesting that even in one of the most sought after buildings in New York, the dynamics of the Pandemic are shaping the real estate market.
  • I wish everyone a great summer and hope you get a chance to rest and relax a bit and explore some new places.

Market Performance as of open Tuesday July 23, 2024:

S&P 500: 5,555.74 (+17.14% YTD)
NASDAQ: 17,997.35 (+21.88% YTD)
S&P/TSX Composite: 22,813.75 (+9.30% YTD)

Canada CPI Inflation May 2024: 2.9% (0.2% Increase from Apr 2024)
Current BoC Benchmark Interest Rate: 4.75% (0.25% Decrease on June 5, 2024) Unemployment Rate June 2024: 6.4% (0.2% Increase from May 2023)

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Is Now a Bad Time to Enter The Workforce?

https://youtu.be/8l5jzZKb8eU

Update Dec 14, 2024: Added Newsletter Email Archive at End of Post.

Statistics Canada Thinks It Is

I have been hearing from many people recently that they are having a hard time finding work. This is not just anecdotal, Stats Canada came out with their most recent labour force survey and the unemployment rate is sitting at 6.4% as of June 2024 and has increased 1.3% in total since April 2023 which was a recent low (low = good). Among these groups, returning students (those who are going back to school in the fall) are at their lowest June employment numbers since June 1998. You may be saying not a big deal, students still have time to figure things out. While this is true, they are also the future of the labour market, and one of the most common ways for students to find their full time employment is through their summer internships or other jobs. If there are fewer students interning and less work for students overall I think this is a concerning development.

I think this lower student employment rate, and the overall high unemployment rate are leading indicators that we are heading for stagnation or even some form of a quiet depression. After having conversations with people from many different industries and hearing by word of mouth from friends of friends, a lot of companies are holding off on hiring right now, because there may be some level of uncertainty about whether their clients will continue to be in business in the coming year or two. This is leading to hesitation across the board regarding hiring people, and especially for new grads. This is making it even more challenging since companies that are shrinking their workforce or looking to hire would rather hire one senior person who can do the work of two people rather than hiring two junior people who need training.

Signs of a Drawn Out Downturn?

Of the types of economic downturns, in this case specifically a job market downturn. It is almost better to have a COVID-like situation where people get hit very hard but can bounce back relatively quickly. A long, slow, protracted downturn, meanwhile, may be felt by fewer people as a whole, but for those who do feel it they will not get a lot of relief in the coming years. It has become apparent that although the Bank of Canada has cut rates, the effect of the rate cuts will be fairly muted, as borrowing power only improves marginally for those looking to take out loans such as a mortgage and businesses are still hesitant to borrow money in order to invest. Because leverage is expensive as a whole right now, we will likely see less economic growth. In order for a business to get a good return on their investment they will need a rather high ROI to justify their cost of borrowing and justify a higher risk investment when a relatively risk free investment is still hovering around 3-4%. With inflation coming down below the risk free rate, there is almost no reason for businesses or investors to look towards higher risk investments which means that less money overall will circulate through the economy.

Canada is also in a special situation because we are always welcoming new highly skilled workers into the country, this could be a good thing for businesses because if there is more demand for their jobs they can theoretically pay a lower rate and get the same output. From the workers side this puts them in an unfortunate situation, they will have to find a way to stand out from the crowd or accept a much lower wage at a time when the cost of living is not improving much.

Real Estate Indicators of Slowing Growth

From the real estate side we are seeing some relief in the rental market, as a recent rentals.ca report showed the year over year rental prices in June 2024 were similar or lower in some of the larger metro areas compared to this time last year. We can also look to the resale market and the pile of inventory that is building up, especially in some segments such as condos. This has yet to manifest in much lower prices, but there are some individual great deals for those who are looking.  The market is a whole isn’t seeing much price pressure likely due to the fact that owners are finding a way to hold on until they get the price they are looking for and aren’t in a rush to sell. The number of truly “distressed” sales has only increased marginally anecdotally speaking and banks have been instructed to help those who are in distressed situations to manage their real estate. We likely won’t see a significant decline in prices in the coming years, but prices may slide slowly downward until borrowing becomes a bit more affordable.

I do foresee a time in the next 3-5 years as things improve with respect to borrowing costs that prices will jump up due to the lack of new construction sales. New condo projects have been taking longer to sell and fewer people have been purchasing them. This also corroborates my previous point about lower investment as we’ve reached a point in Toronto where about 50% of condos are owned by investors which means that they are soon to be the majority of the potential buyers, if not already are, and if investors are not investing their money, condos are not going to be built. If condos are not built, there will be less housing while more people continue to come to the Toronto area which simply supply and demand says higher prices.

Potential Improvements in Student Economics

Another interesting development has been the cap on student visas. On balance I view this as a positive development as I believe the intention of capping them was to prevent predatory “career” schools from taking advantage of students and not providing them a proper education. I quite frankly see nothing wrong with this, although it may inconvenience people who were all but too happy to take advantage of these students whether for cheap labour or for absurdly high tuition fees. The only potential downside to this is that some reputable institutions may lose some of the funding they were anticipating from international students and have to make cuts. But again, I see nothing wrong with a little competition, and competition breeds innovation, so maybe in the end this will turn out to be a positive development across the board. I also see positives when looking at student adjacent market such as the student rental market around campuses.

They will likely become somewhat less competitive with this change. I recall from my time at university that it was truly a crapshoot trying to find a half decent student house. The number of questionable landlords who didn’t take care of their properties was high, the inability of students to clean up after themselves was bad, the SERIOUS lack of supply was horrendous. Overall, there were frequently poor outcomes and often just plain unsafe living conditions. So some relief in that regard is well overdue in those markets. Although, I’m not certain that this will affect the larger universities who may not be as highly affected by the student visa quota. Interestingly, Graduate level visas have not been affected at all which is in line with the concept that Canada is interested in highly skilled workers. (although arguably our problem is with trades workers not highly skilled workers).

Signals from The United States

Interestingly though, if you look to our friends in the south (the US) their stock markets are continuing to do well, which is arguably signaling that things are improving over there and there is confidence that they will continue to improve. The US employment rate is still hovering around an all time high (a positive development) and since they have a more diverse economy they are more resilient overall. You can’t predict the market, but generally when I look at my portfolio and get very happy that is usually a sign that it’s time to sell some of it and cut down on the risk. However, I’m more of a buy and hold type of investor rather than a time the market investor, so I’ll probably just ride whatever wave comes and try to build up some cash in order to purchase any opportunities that may come along in the next little while.

It will be interesting to see how all of these different aspects of the economy develop in the next couple of years, I will be following them closely and doing my best to keep you up to date on them. Hopefully you found this discussion interesting. Feel free to let me know your thoughts any time, I’m always interested to talk economics.  

Keep investing,

Oliver

Sources:

Stats Canada Labour Force Survey June 2024: Click Here

Student Visa Cap News: Click Here

My last post: https://oliverfoote.ca/dont-invest-in-stocks-or-real-estate/

Newsletter Email Archive Sent: July 9, 2024:

Newsletter #17: Cooling June Market, Rates Cut Not Enough, Unemployment Higher

This Weeks Blog Post:

Is now a bad time to enter the workforce?:

  • I talk about the employment numbers and general economic outlook
  • How interest rates will affect the economy and real estate market
  • Student visas and students high unemployment numbers 

Read the full blog post here: https://oliverfoote.ca/is-now-a-bad-time-to-enter-the-workforce/

Real Estate News:

  • June market stats for the Toronto Real Estate Board:
  • Listings of all home types up 67% compared to June last year prices have remained consistent at an average price of $1,162,167, down only 1.6%.  The number of sales were down 16% compared with the same time last year. 
  • Even with the Bank of Canada quarter of a point rate cut last month, June’s sales results are suggesting that buyers will require more to encourage greater activity throughout the market.  Many buyers kept their home purchase decisions on hold keeping the market well-supplied. 
  • TRREB’s Chief Market Analyst Jason Mercer stated that the GTA housing market is currently well-supplied and recent home buyers have benefitted from substantial choice along with negotiating power on price.  As sales pick up throughout the balance of the year alongside lower borrowing costs, increased inventory levels will help mitigate against any run-up on selling prices. 
  • Months of inventory levels have doubled since June of last year, homes are simply taking longer to sell, however we are not seeing the downward pressure on pricing one would expect.  This shows the resilience of the GTA housing market and the continued demand for real estate in southern Ontario.  As the Bank of Canada lowers its lending rate expect more buyers to enter the market and prices to remain strong. 
  • Traditionally July and August are relatively slow months of the year as people go on vacation with their families and put off and big decisions, so it’s likely that supply will continue to build up during the summers months and provide even more selection for buyers.

Market Performance as of open Tuesday July 9, 2024:

S&P 500: 5,584.45 (+17.73% YTD)
NASDAQ: 18,474.51 (+25.12% YTD)
S&P/TSX Composite: 22,058.45 (+5.68% YTD)

Canada CPI Inflation May 2024: 2.9% (0.2% Increase from Apr 2024)
Current BoC Benchmark Interest Rate: 4.75% (0.25% Decrease on June 5, 2024)
Unemployment Rate June 2024: 6.4% (0.2% Increase from May 2023)

Hope you have an amazing week! Chat soon!

Best regards,

Oliver Foote

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Post Communism in The Soviet Union and Economic Growth of The Open Market:

Update Dec 14, 2024: Added Newsletter Email Archive at End of Post.

If you have read some economic history on the Soviet Union, you’ll know that once the Iron Curtain fell and the market became open, it created a lot of prosperity for those who were in the right positions and had the right connections. Since almost all means of production in Russia were state owned at the time, when the Soviet Union fell there was no clear ownership over the state assets anymore, and the people we now know as Oligarchs were able to make deals with state officials and get some once in a lifetime deals on state assets, obviously laden with corruption of all sorts. The Russian story gets quite detailed with people falling in and out of favour with the government, suspicious deaths of Oligarchs and eventually with Vladimir Putin seizing power. I would recommend reading the Wikipedia page on Russian oligarchs if you’re curious.

While the Russia story is fascinating, I wanted to use this post to talk about some smaller scale success stories that occurred as a result of the transition to a free market in some of the Soviet Union satellite countries. Since I have family in Poland and an uncle who runs a small furniture factory out of an old barn, I thought his story and the story of a few entrepreneurs in this small village of 2000 people would make a great example. After the fall of communism in Poland in 1989 and the privatization of the market, it opened opportunities for many people, even small business owners to ride the wave of economic growth that would come. As an example let’s take the story of one family in the village where my mother grew up. The business owner has a very well known story in the village and it is a story of right place right time in his case.

Around the time when the market was opening up and becoming more privatized Greg took out some business loans from multiple banks to purchase land and equipment for his furniture business. Since they were only beginning to regulate open market banking you could shop around at various banks and get each one to lend you a chunk of money for your business. During communism inflation was consistently hitting double digits every month to the point where it hit 1200% in 1990. These two factors set him up for great success with respect to timing. If you have a means of production to make current income at sell goods at current market prices, but your loans were taken out while hyperinflation is happening, you can pay down those loans for pennies on the dollar in a few short months (or groszy on the złoty for my Poles). I’m not entirely sure who would be lending money in an economy with hyperinflation, but I would imagine the lenders tried to protect themselves with very high interest rates or maybe only lend money pegged to a more stable currency. But even interest rates might not be a great defence depending on the severity of the inflation. When there is hyperinflation it’s a very bad time to be a lender and a very good time to be a borrower. So Greg and a few others in the village became significant land owners and business owners and paid next to nothing for it. Now he owns a small shopping mall in the town of Krosno nearby and a vacation home in Spain, so he’s done well for himself. Timing isn’t everything, building a business is not an easy endeavour, but it can help speed things up a bit.

As another example from the same village let’s take my uncle. He was just getting out of school when communism fell. So him and a friend decided to try and start up their own furniture businesses and they worked together to learn all the tricks of the trade required to set up shop. I don’t think he ever expected his business to do as well as it has. At the time he was just trying to find a way to work and make some money. While he didn’t get the very lucky timing of taking out loans while hyperinflation was hitting, he was able to ride a different wave of prosperity. Poland joined the European Union in 2004. This meant free trade and the goal to bring up countries like Poland to higher standards of living. With the free market, the free trade of the EU and the direct financial assistance given to Poland, their economy began to grow. All the while my uncle was selling his furniture to dealers in larger cities and building a network of connections and people who wanted to buy his product. He expanded and bought new equipment and now runs a very sustainable small business. 

Poland is now quite “westernized” in it’s standard of living, there is opportunity if you want it, and the big cities are doing quite well and you can find some very well paying jobs in Warsawa. This more advanced stage also introduces multinational corporations who now see a business case to open up stores in the country, for example IKEA. When I had this realization that IKEA might come in and steal all the business from the small furniture manufacturers, I was somewhat concerned for my uncle. But funny enough I actually think something even more interesting has happened. IKEA isn’t exactly known for having top quality materials or amazing variety. What I think has happened is by introducing this new player in the market is it actually elevates my uncles product to a more premium level. 

The people who may buy from IKEA to outfit their small apartment in the big city, aren’t necessarily the same people who are staying long term in Poland and are looking for something that is better quality and can be built to order. They serve two completely different markets, and there is space for both of them. Also reflecting back on one of my later blogs about how zoning bylaws in North America don’t encourage small business, the design of a European country is simply more friendly to a wider variety of commerce and smaller businesses in my opinion. Overall, I think there is a more local attitude that still prevails in Europe while in North America we tend to prioritize huge multinational corporations and big box stores. 

It is possible that over time things will change, and my uncle will have to find a different way to sell his products. But for now I think his business will continue to grow and serve his market. From a purely economic perspective I find it fascinating how many similar stories there are to his in the soviet satellite countries and Russia itself. Even just within my family’s small village in Poland there are numerous well known entrepreneurs who set up shop around the fall of communism and have expanded their reach to supply stores across the country. 

Every once in a while the economy presents a great opportunity to start up a business and in the moment you might not even realize it’s happening. As a recent example, investing in the stock market during COVID. The only thing I wish I did differently was borrow more money to invest with. Hindsight is 20-20 in these situations at there is always risk to borrowing money and you can never really predict what will happen in the future. Our present economy has becoming challenging for a lot of people and if you read the news, there has been news of thousands of tech layoffs in the US. However, many of these employees turn around and start their own companies once they get let go and are finding great success doing so. There is a lot of opportunity available even now, and great sustainable businesses are often built during challenging times. Understanding the past can give you insights into what economic forces were in effect during that moment in time and help improve your radar for understanding when and where the next opportunity might present itself. Communism and COVID are just two of many different examples around the world of global economic shifts that can present great opportunities for people who are ready and able to capitalize on them. 

All the best,

Oliver Foote

Newsletter Email Archive Sent: Feb 4, 2024:

Newsletter #7: Blog: Post-Soviet Economic Growth, Winter is Over in Real Estate.

The news on the ground is that the real estate market is heating up again. The likely causes are the drop in fixed mortgage rates that has been silently occurring over the past 4 months or so making it somewhat more feasible for first-time buyers to purchase again, combined with the slow tick down in prices. Some might even call the market crazy again, I saw a home get 85 offers last week, yes you read that right, 85. It was priced well below market, but it was targeting the first-time buyer category. It was a semi-detached in Mississauga marketed at 750k, ended up selling for 999k. The open house had a line down the street. It was a great home in great condition, but 85 offers is a bit crazy, in any market. What this shows to me is that we are still in a severe lack of supply situation for the type of housing many people want at a price that they want. Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to change in the future, as interest rates fall prices will likely go even higher and continue to make it challenging for first time buyers to break into the market in the under $1 million category.

This Weeks Blog Post:

Post-Communism in The Soviet Union and Growth of The Open Market:

  • During communism the state owned everything. Once the Iron Curtain fell, something had to happen with those assets.
  • Oligarchs in Russia were able to capitalize on this opportunity, but what about the smaller countries?
  • Many small business owners in satellite countries saw prosperity, or had very good timing and were able to grow sustainable businesses during a time of change and economic growth.
  • Timing isn’t everything, but it sure helps.

Read the full blog post here: https://oliverfoote.ca/2024/02/04/post-communism-in-the-soviet-union-and-economic-growth-of-the-open-market/

Housing News:

Market Performance as of close Friday Feb 2, 2024:

S&P 500: 4,958.61 (+4.55% YTD)
NASDAQ: 15,628.95 (+5.84% YTD)
S&P/TSX Composite: 21,085.09 (+1.02% YTD)

Canada CPI Inflation Dec 2023: 3.4% (0.3% Increase from Nov 2023)
Current BoC Benchmark Interest Rate: 5% NC
Current Prime Lending Rate: 7.2% NC
Unemployment Rate Dec 2023: 5.8% NC

All the best,

Oliver