Home Depot's pandemic era boom. Well it appears to be fading.
The home improvement retailer came up short in its latest
quarter and this is the first time it's done this
since before.
The pandemic shares right now are down as you can see by about more than 6%.
The company is blaming its lower sales on lower lumber cost.
Home Depot also has a weak outlook for the coming fiscal year.
Two contributing factors
to that outlook are flat consumer spending growth and lower spending on goods.
And this is a big reversal of the trends that we saw during the pandemic.
When people were doing all sorts of home improvement projects.
Today inflation is high and the housing market has slowed
separately. Home Depot is trying to hire more workers by offering higher wages.
We are in a really tight tight labor market. The company is spending $1 billion
to raise wages for hourly workers to a minimum of $15 per hour in the U. S.
And in Canada.
And that is the minimum which means that the average is gonna be a little bit higher.
Right now, Home Depot is not saying what its new average wages