The move applies to those in hybrid roles, or those who already work remotely a couple of days a week, and workers were told they must stay in their country of employment to take advantage of the perk, according to people familiar with the matter. The bank gave staff a similar option in August.

A spokeswoman for New York-based Citigroup confirmed the move. 

Fraser has offered most staffers the ability to work remotely at least part of the time on a permanent basis, with most Citigroup employees expected to be in the office three days a week. The CEO has said Wall Streets insistence on full-time office attendance feels dated, arguing in an interview with Fortune last month that workers will vote with their feet on such policies. 

There is a lot of value that you get from being together and some more of the spontaneity from that and the collaboration, the apprenticeship, Fraser said at the time. Still, she said, our junior bankers, they dont have to be in the office late at night if theyre working on a deal. Once theyve done the work collaborating together, they can do that at home. We know if theyre doing a good job or not.

Fraser said most traders tend to work from the office five days a week, though they have the necessary technology to work from home if they need to attend a childs school play or run home at lunchtime to see their family. Meanwhile call-center staffers are spending more of their days at home, she said. 

Theyll be coming in if they need training, Fraser said. If theyre a poor performer, and they need some coaching from their manager, they can do that and then go back to working from home again, she said.

Remote Work Experiment

Office occupancy levels across the New York metro area reached their highest post-pandemic levels in recent weeks and are nearing 50%, according to card-swipe data from Kastle Systems. 

Still, working parents across the country have increasingly lamented juggling return-to-office requirements with rising levels of influenza, Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). A busy holiday travel season is expected to complicate that picture even more. 

Working from home in knowledge jobs like banking is new, so everyone is learning from this experiment, said Lynda Gratton, a management professor at London Business School and author of Redesigning Work. Seeing it as an event, just for summer or Christmas, makes good sense. It creates discretionary time during a period when people really value it, and gives leaders a chance to try out the impact in a low-risk way.

With assistance from Matthew Boyle.

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At times, it felt like the 1970s or early 80s. Inflation running rampant. The United States and its European allies engaged in a not-so-Cold War with Russia. A bleak outlook leaving people feeling sour and anxious.

It wasnt supposed to turn out like this.

When the Federal Reserves policymakers made their 2022 forecasts a year ago, they seemed almost cheery. After two years of tumult ignited by the pandemic, they foresaw the U.S. economy returning to something close to normal.

They expected consumer inflation to reach 2.6% at the end of 2022 compared with 12 months earlier. That wouldve been only a few ticks above their 2% annual target but nothing ominous and a clear recovery from high inflation earlier in 2021.

The Feds officials, it turns out, underestimated how pay increases, federal aid, supply shortages and a pent-up desire by consumers to spend would conspire to accelerate inflation and keep it high. But mainly they didnt foresee that President Vladimir Putin would send tens of thousands of Russian troops to invade Ukraine in February this year an act of shocking aggression that upended world trade in energy and farm products and sent oil, natural gas and grain prices soaring.

Without that Russian invasion, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moodys Analytics, wed be in a very different place today.

Normal would have to wait.

U.S. inflation, an afterthought for decades, resurged with a vengeance this year, reaching heights unseen since the early 1980s. Galloping prices shrank Americans inflation-adjusted pay despite high wage growth for many and put consumers in a foul mood. The price spikes forced the Fed to raise interest rates aggressively at the risk of plunging the worlds largest economy into recession.

It was hardly just the United States. Inflation buffeted countries across the world. The International Monetary Fund expects worldwide inflation to hit 8.8% this year. That would be the highest rate since 1996.

Europe has been especially pummeled by Putins energy shock. Consumer prices are rising at double-digit rates across the continent and the United Kingdom. The spending power of consumers has been crushed. Many see a European recession in 2023 as a near-certainty.

As the year ends, though, it looks like relief may be coming tentatively, gradually, perhaps, but still likely on its way. Inflation numbers in Europe and especially in the United States are edging down.

I think weve seen the peak in inflation; it was probably back in the summer, Zandi said. We will see much better inflation numbers over the course of the next 12 to 18 months.

Yet for now, the pain of higher prices continues to inflict hardships on many. For American workers, inflation-adjusted hourly pay fell 1.7% in November from a year earlier. It was the 20th straight month that that figure has declined year-over-year.

And even though overall inflation in the United States eased in November for a fifth straight month, food prices kept surging. Compared with 12 months earlier, coffee was up 15%. Bread rose 16%, frozen vegetables 18%, canned fruit 21% and eggs an eye-glazing 49%.

Businesses large and small are struggling to contain the higher costs and to determine whether and by how much they can pass their higher costs on to their customers as higher prices.

Wayne Shumar, who owns Pepperronnies Family Restaurant in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, became so exasperated with inflation that he posted his receipts for shredded lettuce and tomatoes on his restaurants Faceook page. Those prices had doubled in six months.

To save money, Shumar has shifted from using one vendor to four. He scans each of their websites for the best deals before placing an order. He also picks up orders himself to avoid vendors fuel surcharges.

Before I spent more time out in the dining room, Shumar said. Thats what a family restaurant entails. Now I spend more time sitting here, looking at a computer screen, trying to keep costs down.

Likewise, Logans Roadhouse, a chain of 136 restaurants, is contending with a 28% increase in premium sirloin prices. It expects those prices to surge an additional 20% early next year.

We are constantly evaluating the cut of meat, said Josh Kern, CEO of Logans parent company, SPB Hospitality. Are there recipe changes that we can do?

In another cost-cutting move, Logans switched from premium-priced waffle fries to straight-cut fries. (So far, diners havent rebelled.) Butter is up 42% from a year ago. So Kerns company is negotiating with butter vendors.

The chain is now making its own macaroni and cheese instead of buying it from a manufacturer.

We looked at everything in the pantry, and we could make just as good macaroni and cheese, Kern said.

Pucker Up Lemonade, which sells drinks at its stand in Compton, California, and at festivals and convenience stores, used to buy its refillable cups from a local vendor for $1 each. Now, those cups are $2.50. The owner, Karneisha Christian-Stewart, is preparing to buy them from China, having calculated that she could save $15,000 on a bulk order of 10,000 cups.

Ive never imported before, Christian-Stewart said. I have to do that because the cost savings is a lot for a small business.

John Catsimatidis, who owns the New York supermarket chains Gristedes and DAgostinos, complains that beef and chicken cost about 30% more than they did a year ago. Fish prices are up even more.

Inflations unexpected and unwelcome re-emergence in 2022 wasnt the only wild turn the economy has taken since early 2020.

First, COVID-19 brought economic activity to a sudden halt as businesses shut down or reduced hours and consumers stayed home as a health precaution. In the United States, the economy imploded: It contracted at a record annual rate of more than 30% from April through June 2020. Employers wiped out a staggering 22 million jobs in March and April 2020.

The Fed and other central banks slashed rates, and governments delivered huge economic stimulus through spending programs. The result was a stunning rebound. Flush with government aid, consumers, especially in the United States, splurged on furniture, appliances, exercise equipment, video games and other manufactured goods.

The sudden burst of spending caused shortages, delayed shipments and higher prices. Companies recalled many of the workers theyd laid off in early 2020. Yet they still couldnt hire fast enough to keep up with customer orders. Many of them sharply raised wages to try to attract and keep workers.

Consumer prices began to tick up in the spring of 2021. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell suggested that higher inflation was likely transitory and would ease once global supply chain bottlenecks unsnarled.

Yet month after month, the supply shocks refused to fade. Sometimes, bizarre incidents intervened. A surprise freeze in Texas paralyzed petrochemical production. A mammoth container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal and severed trade between Asia and Europe. A drought in Taiwan disrupted semiconductor manufacturing. An avian flu wiped out a near-record number of poultry.

Those factors combined to send inflation steadily up toward multi-decade highs well into 2022.

Some of this stuff you cant make up, said Daniel Swan, co-leader of the operations practice at the consultancy McKinsey & Co. I dont know what normal is anymore.

Worst of all, Putin invaded Ukraine and blew up global energy and food markets.

In response, the Fed has raised its benchmark rate seven times this year, most recently on Wednesday. Its key rate, which affects many consumer and business loans, is now at its highest level since 2007.

The Fed intends the higher rates to slow the economy enough to bring high prices under control without tipping the economy into a recession a notoriously difficult maneuver to achieve.

At least supply chains are gradually working out their kinks as demand for manufactured goods slows. Many ports, which had strained under backlogs at the start of 2022, are operating normally again. Lower shipping costs alone are likely to shave half a percentage point off global inflation, Simon MacAdam, senior global economist at Capital Economics, has estimated.

The official inflation numbers are looking better. The U.S. government reported this week that American consumer prices rose 7.1% last month from a year earlier still high but a big improvement. Year-over-year price increases peaked at 9.1% in June and have slowed every month since.

Even the 10% inflation last month in the 19 countries that share the euro currency was down from 10.6% in October. The United Kingdoms government reported that annual inflation dipped to a still-painful 10.7% last month from 11.1% in October.

Oil prices have plunged since early November, easing prices at the pump. A gallon of unleaded gasoline cost an average $3.19 on Thursday, down from $5.02 in mid-June, according to AAA.

All that said, the fight against inflation is hardly over. Some economists worry that worker shortages will endure, especially in labor-dependent services businesses, thereby keeping upward pressure on wages and prices.

Inflation has been shifting from goods to services, where it is typically more intractable. According to the inflation gauge the Fed favors the governments personal consumption expenditures price index  services prices were up a brisk 0.4% in October and 0.6% in both September and August.

Inflation is very likely to have peaked and will be lower in 2023 than it was in 2022, said Jason Furman, a Harvard economist who was a top adviser to President Barack Obama. The problem is that lower could mean 3% or 4%, which would still be too high for the Fed. And lower is happening in part because the economy is weakening.

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DInnocenzio reported from New York. AP Business Writer Dee-Ann Durbin contributed from Detroit.

Retail sales fell 0.6% from October to November after a sharp 1.3% rise the previous month, the government said Thursday. Sales fell at furniture, electronics, and home and garden stores.

Americans spending has been resilient ever since inflation first spiked almost 18 months ago, but the capacity of Americans to continue spending in a period of high inflation may be beginning to ebb. Inflation has retreated from the four-decade high it reached this summer but remains elevated, enough to erode the spending power of Americans. Prices rose 7.1% in November from a year ago.

The weakness in sales suggests that higher borrowing costs, slower employment growth and an unusually low saving rate are now catching up with consumers, said Andrew Hunter, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

Consumer spending is still likely to grow at a solid pace in the final three months of the year, Hunter said, but he expects a sharp drop early next year.

Monthly sales data can be volatile and one negative report is often followed by a rebound, other economists said.

Sales plunged 2.3% at auto dealers, and slipped 0.6% at sporting goods stores and 0.1% at general merchandise stores, a category that includes large chains such as Walmart and Target. Sales at online and catalog stores fell 0.9%.

The steep 2.5% decline in sales at home and garden stores likely reflects the sharp decline in home sales due rapid interest rate hikes in the U.S., which have put homes increasingly out of reach for more Americans.

Solid hiring, rising pay, and enhanced savings from government financial support during the pandemic have enabled most Americans to keep up with rising prices. Yet many are now digging into their savings to maintain the same level of spending. The saving rate declined to its second-lowest level on record in October.

Americans are also putting more purchases on their credit cards. Total credit card debt jumped 15% in the July-September quarter, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the biggest jump in 20 years.

Shopping at a Walmart in New Jersey, Eric Cruz, said he planned to cut his holiday shopping budget by roughly 20% this year, to about $800. The 33-year-old Jersey City entrepreneur said rising costs for utilities and rent now take a bigger chunk of his income. He is trying to offset rising costs by seeking out credit cards with greater rewards, like 5% back on spending.

I am looking for extra incentives and credit cards allow me to do that, he said.

Symptoms of economic stress are beginning to appear, retailers have noted.

Craft supplies chain Jo-Ann Stores this week announced a pause in quarterly dividends for investors after comparable store sales fell 8% during its most recent quarter, which ended in October.

Budget-conscious consumers have been under a prolonged period of stress for many months now, and they are getting more selective, said CEO Wade Miquelon.

Miquelon said, however, that inflation is subsiding even as the U.S. potentially heads into something more typical of a recessionary environment in the short term.

Overstock, the online retailer that sells a lot of furniture, began promoting holiday items as early as October this year to pull in cautious shoppers, said CEO Jonathan Johnson.

Everyone is competing for wallet share by offering the best deals they can offer, Johnson said. Customers continue to look to stretch their dollars as far as possible.

Black Friday weekend, which kicks off the holiday shopping season, was strong this year, said Sonia Lapinsky, managing director in the retail practice at consultancy AlixPartners.

Yet, Lapinsky noted, people are buying less overall with almost everything more expensive than it was last year.

Inflation is going to continue to put pressure on the wallet, Lapinsky said. I think consumers are going to hunker down.

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DInnocenzio reported from New York.

Our new weekly Impact Report newsletter examines how ESG news and trends are shaping the roles and responsibilities of todays executives. Subscribe here.