The global economy “could soon test the limits of resilience”, as emergency oil stocks run low and government budgets become overstretched, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
In its twice-yearly World Economic Outlook, the IMF said global growth had withstood the Middle East conflict better than feared over the past six months.
It said the rerouting of oil supplies away from the strait of Hormuz, and the release of strategic energy stocks, had helped to contain the impact on oil prices from the US-Iran war.
However, it warned that emergency stocks are now depleted, and high debt levels and deficits in many countries could leave governments with little capacity to protect consumers from any future jump in prices.
“Without shoring up supply capacity and replenishing policy buffers, the global economy could soon test the limits of resilience,” it said. “Inventories in energy markets are dwindling and additional geopolitical shocks could still transmit rapidly through prices and supply disruptions.”
The International Energy Agency announced the largest-ever emergency releases of oil stocks on to the market in March this year, and promised to accelerate it after a meeting of oil ministers last month.
But in a sign of the system’s vulnerability, the US strategic petroleum reserve was recently reported to have fallen to its lowest level since 1982.
Last week, Donald Trump agreed a deal with Vladimir Putin to temporarily lift sanctions on US imports of Russian diesel in an attempt to bring down prices at the pumps, which analysts said would have little “meaningful” effect.
The World Economic Report was published on Tuesday in Bangkok, where the IMF and World Bank are holding their annual meetings this week, with finance ministers and central bankers scheduled to attend.
Ahead of the gathering, the IMF managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, urged governments to tighten their belts, amid rising global debt levels. “We cannot keep delaying necessary policy action – you have the tools, now have the wisdom to use them,” she said.
In the report, the IMF revised up its forecast for global economic growth this year marginally, to 3.1% – against 3% in its last update in July. Next year’s forecast is unchanged, at 3.4%.
US growth remains unchanged at 2.3% this year and revised up to the same pace, 2.3%, for 2027 – from 2.2% at the last update.
The IMF predicted GDP growth of 1.3% for the UK this year – up 0.3 percentage points from its most recent update in July – in welcome news for the chancellor, John Healey, who is set to arrive in Bangkok later this week.
However, the IMF also warned that prolonged high oil prices and rising interest rates meant growth was likely to “edge down” in 2027, “as higher energy prices and long-term interest rates weigh on consumption and investment”. It cut its UK growth forecast for next year modestly to 1.2%, from 1.3%.
However, the IMF warned that “risks are skewed to the downside” for the global economy. In particular, it pointed to the threat of “a prolonged stalemate or further escalation in the Middle East”, which would lead to higher energy and food prices.
“Further disruptions to energy infrastructure, cyber-attacks, or extreme weather events could amplify these effects,” the IMF added.
Trump has continued to insist that he could launch another wave of attacks on Iran in the coming weeks, with little sign of a peace agreement being negotiated.
The persistence of elevated oil prices means the spike in inflation is now expected to last longer than previously forecast.
Global inflation is expected to be 4.7% this year – the same level as forecast in July – and to decline to 4.1% in 2027 – up from 4% in the last update.
The IMF urged the world’s central banks not to overreact to short-term jumps in inflation, but to be ready to respond quickly if it appears to be becoming entrenched. “With economic conditions in flux, agility is at a premium,” it said.
As well as fresh turmoil in energy markets, the IMF pointed to the continuing risk to the global economy of an AI-driven market crash
Eknoor Singh says he only needs his mobile phone and a decent internet connection to earn more than £120,000 a year.
The 22-year-old Londoner is a professional “clipper”. He is paid by clients to make short, vertical videos for social media, in the hope of them going viral, reports BBC.
“The more views a clip gets, the more money I make,” he says.
The way it typically works is that the client – who could be anyone from a clothing brand to a record label, movie studio, podcaster or influencer – has a longer video that the clipper watches first.
He or she then makes 30 to 60-second clips of what they consider to be the best bit or bits, and uploads them to Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or other platforms.
The idea is that the clippers, who are typically aged from 16 to 25, will have a better understanding of what will connect with that demographic, and get the short videos as many views as possible.
£10,000 a month
With clippers able to earn up to $3 (£2.30) per 1,000 views across platforms, it can be very lucrative if a particular clip does take off.
Singh says he got hooked on clipping last year when he made $300 from posting a short video of popstar Dua Lipa on Instagram.
“I was like, ‘OK, this is a lot of money for simply posting a video.’ I instantly knew how lucrative it could be.”
Now he says he is earning “at least £10,000 a month”.
He adds that he looks for clips that are funny, quick to watch and engaging, such as a short video he made in May of Sabrina Carpenter’s reaction to having the tails of her dress stepped on at the Met Gala in New York. Singh did not reveal who the client was.
Many make nothing
For 24-year-old clipper Ethan Weems from Wichita, Kansas, it’s a lucrative side hustle to his other video-making work. He says he makes “at least $1,000 a month” from clipping.
He does this by making short videos for YouTuber and podcaster Caleb Hammer, who is best known for hosting a show called Financial Audit, which analyses the personal finances of his guests.
Weems says clipping helps him make a living from home – giving him more time to spend with his wife and one-year-old son. “I don’t want that typical nine-to-five job where I have to go into an office every day,” he says.
Yet while some clippers can make good money, social media consultant Lia Haberman cautions that there are very few of them. “It mirrors the creator economy more broadly. The vast majority make little to nothing,” she says.
Meanwhile, streaming industry analyst Devin Nash says it’s easy to underestimate the time required to make clipping a success. He warns that successful clippers must “watch hours and hours of content, and they just live in that world”.
Connecting clippers with their prospective clients are a number of intermediary websites, where available video jobs are listed.
These range from pages on general online forums such as Reddit and Discord, to dedicated clipping sites such as Clipping Culture, Vyro, Whop and Kick.
The latter websites take a fee from the companies wanting the work done. Clipping Culture lists clients including Capital Records, Universal Music Group and HBO Max.
For firms such as these, hiring a teenager or 20-something working from his or her bedroom is far cheaper than paying for traditional adverts on social media, and likely to be more effective in terms of getting eyeballs.
That’s the experience of Boxabl, a Las Vegas-based firm that makes modular homes. “I think we’ve done probably a billion views [of clips] so far,” says founder Galiano Tiramani, who features in many of the company’s videos.
In the UK, Jimmy McLoughlin, a former Downing Street adviser and now host of the Jimmy’s Jobs of the Future podcast, has also embraced clips.
“The clips are almost like trailers for the main events,” he says. For instance, a recent podcast with Prime Minister Andy Burnham “had close to 50,000 long plays, but in terms of clips, it’s done millions”.
Evan Stanfield, the founder and boss of Clipping Culture, is himself just 21. He set up the business last year after dropping out of the University of Kansas.
Stanfield says that the website connects brands to more than 340,000 clippers from all over the world. He has a simple theory for the popularity of short videos: “People’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter.”
He adds that making the clips is a young person’s game because “they’re most of the consumers of short-form videos”.
Back in London, Eknoor Singh says he is “kind of clipping non-stop”, wherever he is.
“I could be anywhere. I could go on holiday and make money.”