Decalchongnang

Business investment dropped 1% to $14.1 trillion in January, the Commerce Department reported Friday, reflecting a slowdown in new investment after the start of the flu season.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said that, despite the influenza season, business investment had recovered to its pre-flu levels.

The U.K.’s Office for National Statistics also reported Friday that business investment dropped by 0.4% in the January-March period.

Business investment is the main indicator of the recovery from the pandemic, which has had a devastating effect on the U.N. refugee agency.

Businesses in the United States and Europe, the world’s two biggest economies, have seen some of the strongest declines in spending since the pandemics outbreak in 2009.

The number of companies in the U, Europe and China that reported spending more than $10 billion in the first half of the year dropped by 2.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.