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The e-commerce revolution has changed consumers’ shopping patterns and generated downstream repercussions that business leaders like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett were out in front of early on. These e-commerce icons, of course, are early adopters of new technology who made fortunes by anticipating the opportunities associated with e-commerce. Back in 1996, Steve Jobs said, “The heart of the web will be commerce.” Warren Buffett sees online retailing as a massive growth opportunity, as evidenced by Berkshire’s recent acquisition of online retailer, Oriental Trading. Jeff Bezos, a founding father of e-commerce said this: “Your margin is my opportunity,” meaning his goals are to flood the marketplace with as many online purchases as possible (increasing package deliveries as a ripple effect). Is it working? In the United States, of all e-commerce growth in 2014 and 2015, Amazon accounted for 60 percent. The explosion of online purchases seems easily predictable in hindsight. This year, consumers and businesses will make more purchases online than in brick and mortar stores. However, many businesses and consumers are bumping into a bothersome bottleneck that occurs at the back end: package delivery and acceptance. Naturally enough, with their embrace of online purchasing, consumers have grown …

For the second month in a row, U.S. nonfarm payroll employment experienced a big increase, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). In June, employers added 287,000 net new payroll jobs, beating economist forecasts by more than 50 percent. The job gains in July generated more positive headlines, as employers added 255,000 new payroll jobs, once again blowing away economist forecasts that predicted 180,000. These numbers are especially welcome after a disappointing May, where job growth of 24,000 fell well short of predictions. REBusinessOnline asked two economists — Robert Bach, director of research for Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, and Ryan Severino, senior economist and director of research for Reis — what this news means for the commercial real estate industry as a whole. REBusinessOnline: The employment data has looked fairly healthy in the last few months. Yet, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) increased at a 1.2 percent annual rate in the second quarter (subject to revision), which isn’t terrific. What are we to make of these seemingly mixed signals about the health of the economy? Ryan Severino: GDP has never been the best measure of the health of the economy. That’s not really what it was intended to do, though …

What a difference a month makes when it comes to U.S. job growth and the near-term economic outlook. After the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a disappointing nonfarm payroll employment report for May, showing a net gain of only 38,000 jobs — a figure that was later revised downward to 11,000 — June rebounded in a big way. Employers added 287,000 net new payroll jobs in June, blowing past the 180,000 jobs forecasted by Bloomberg based on its survey of economists. In a research note titled “Employment Whiplash,” Robert Bach, director of research for the Americas at real estate services firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, wrote that both the May and June job growth data are “outliers” in his view. Noise in the Numbers Bach pointed out that a strike by Verizon workers subtracted about 35,000 jobs from the information sector in May, but when that crisis passed those jobs were subsequently added to the BLS report for June. Bach believes those events exaggerated the volatility over the past two months. “The three-month average of 147,000 is a better indication of the underlying strength of the labor market. Although growth declined in the first half of 2016, it remains …