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National Average Price Per Gallon: $3.216
After meeting in Vienna, Austria to discuss the current oil market, OPEC ministers announced a deal to increase production.
This marks a change from the group’s previous strategy, which led them to cap production in order to boost prices for the last 18 months.
However, OPEC avoided announcing its new production targets, which has left analysts on-edge.
Framing lumber: $554
Panels/plywood: $565
Framing lumber prices plummeted as demand fell for most products. The Random Lengths Framing Lumber Composite Price dropped by $17 over last week, which is the second consecutive double-digit drop.
Structural panel products also saw another week of lackluster sales. This caused the composite price to drop, and also led some lumber producers to start offering deep discounts.
With unemployment at record lows, there are now more open jobs in the U.S. than there are unemployed workers to fill them.
This year is the first time the level of unemployed workers has exceeded the number of open jobs since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking these numbers in 2000.
As the demand for employees grows, workers have gotten more confident about leaving their current positions for better ones. The rate of workers quitting their jobs was at 2.3% in April. This is the highest since 2005.
Sources: Random Lengths, EIA, CNBC (1), CNBC (2)
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