The world is counting on an economic bounceback from China to power global growth and help keep recession at bay. Don’t bank on it.

China’s recovery after years of Covid-19 lockdowns will likely look a lot different from previous ones. And for many parts of the world, economists warn, it could be less potent than governments and businesses hope.

China has historically relied on government stimulus and heavy investment to power itself out of slumps. That mix helped yank the global economy out of the doldrums after the 2008 financial crisis.

This time, China is deeply in debt, its housing market is in distress, and much of the infrastructure the country needs is already built. As a result, its latest revival will be led by consumers, who are casting off almost three years of public-health restrictions and travel bans after the government abruptly dismantled its zero-tolerance policy toward Covid-19.

Data shows that people are again venturing out and shopping in big cities, and there are signs that the worst of China’s Covid outbreak might be behind it. Like their American counterparts, Chinese consumers squirrelled away cash during lockdowns. But consumer confidence remains low. While wealthier Chinese are opening their wallets, many others are choosing to save more than spend.

Early indications suggest the biggest effects of China’s rebound will be felt at home, rather than abroad. Official data, including business surveys, sales and public transit numbers, suggest the strongest growth will come from service industries such as restaurants, bars and travel.

That means that while an accelerating China is good news for fragile global growth, especially as the U.S. and Europe are set to slow, the direct effects of its revival will likely be less pronounced elsewhere than in the stimulus-led expansions of the past.

“China will deliver a powerful economic recovery, but the growth spillover to the rest of the world will be much more muted in this cycle because of the nature of the economic rebound,” said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC.

The U.S. economy is unlikely to feel much benefit at all, some analysts say, since it has limited exposure to China’s service industries. U.S. growth might even be squeezed if China’s reopening pushes up demand for energy and raises global energy prices, adding to inflationary pressures.

China’s economy is set to expand 5.2% in 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund’s latest forecasts, easily outpacing the 1.4% growth rate expected in the U.S. and 0.7% in Europe’s 20-nation common currency area.

The IMF predicts China will account for around a third of global growth this year, compared with just 10% for the U.S. and Europe combined. That would take China back to the kind of share it had in the five years before the pandemic, IMF data show. In 2022, when the U.S. grew at 2.1%, China’s economy expanded 3%, its second-worst performance since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. China’s share of global growth sank to 16%.

“It’s so important that China rebounds this year because the U.S. and Europe are expected to slow down sharply,” said Hoe Ee Khor, chief economist at the Asean+3 Macroeconomic Research Office, an economic research organisation that provides policy advice and technical assistance to economies in East and Southeast Asia. “It provides the support that’s missing among those three pillars.”

Wealthier Chinese could help boost the global economy with spending on European luxury goods and vacations in places such as Southeast Asia. Swiss watchmaker Swatch Group AG said in January that based on the rebound in sales it experienced in China immediately after reopening, it expects a record year for revenue, powered by sales in China, Hong Kong and Macau as travel resumes.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and chief executive of luxury goods giant LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, told analysts and reporters on Jan. 26 that stores are full in Macau. “The change is quite spectacular,” he said.

“This is a serious bump for everybody,” David Calhoun, chief executive officer of Boeing Inc., said last month on a call with investors, describing China’s reopening as “a major event in aviation.” He said the company is aiming to get idled aircraft back in the air and is hopeful on further deliveries to China, as Chinese carriers will need Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft to meet rebounding demand for flights.

Other companies are more circumspect. Chinese households received far less in fiscal support from their government during the pandemic than workers in advanced economies, and many consumers remain worried about a weak job market and the continuing real-estate slump.

Colgate-Palmolive Co. Chief Executive Officer Noel Wallace told analysts late last month that despite the euphoria about reopening, sales of the company’s household goods in China remain soft. “China is a big question mark,” he said.

Yum China Holdings Inc., which manages restaurant chains including Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut in China, said it saw a bump in sales during China’s recent Lunar New Year holidays but it is wary about the outlook. “While all these happy improvements are happening, we are also cautious that the value for money, the cautious spending is also happening,” Chief Executive Joey Wat said on a Feb. 7 call with analysts.

In previous years of stimulus-fuelled growth, when China plowed money into real estate, infrastructure and factories to turn its economy around, its ravenous demand for commodities and machinery was felt all over the world—among tool makers in Germany, copper producers in Latin America, makers of excavators in Japan and coal producers in Australia.

In 2009, China expanded 9.4% thanks to a $586 billion stimulus package, providing a powerful counterweight to advanced economies hit hard by the global financial crisis.

Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate China’s reopening will add 1 percentage point to global economic growth this year, primarily through higher demand for energy, higher imports and international travel. The biggest beneficiaries are likely to be oil exporters and China’s neighbours in Asia, they said.

Modelling by Oxford Economics implies a smaller boost to global growth. The consulting firm said if Chinese gross domestic product grows 5% this year with the end of Covid restrictions, that would lift global growth to just 1.5%, a gain of 0.2 percentage point compared with their previous forecast.

Goldman Sachs estimates the direct effect of China’s reopening on U.S. growth to be slightly negative, perhaps shaving about 0.04 percentage point off 2023 growth, as the effect of higher oil prices offsets any increase in exports or tourists. The U.S. and other economies less exposed to the reopening might still benefit from indirect effects, though, if China’s revival lifts global trade and business activity overall or contributes to easier financing for households and businesses.

Even if its growth rebounds sharply, underlying issues remain in China’s economy. Local governments are saddled with debt, limiting their ability to finance infrastructure spending. China has taken steps to boost the real-estate industry, such as easing lending curbs on overstretched developers, but such policies aren’t expected to reverse China’s drop in home sales soon because falling prices mean families are still cautious about home purchases, said Tommy Wu, chief China economist at Commerzbank AG. That will limit China’s appetite for commodities such as iron ore, he said.

Other policy goals could weigh on Chinese demand for imports. Beijing is eager to produce more sophisticated capital goods domestically, rather than buy them from Japan and Germany, and has been reining in polluting industries such as steel to meet climate goals.

Steel production fell 2.1% in 2022 from the previous year, and iron ore imports dropped by 1.5%. BHP Group Ltd., the world’s largest miner by market value, said in January that it expects China to be a stabilizing force for commodity demand in 2023. But it isn’t predicting a rebound to pre-pandemic rates of growth, saying Chinese steel output will likely plateau this half-decade after what was possibly the peak in production in 2020.

While domestic flights in China have picked up quickly, it will take some time before flights to Europe and the U.S. begin to approach pre-pandemic levels, said Olivier Ponti, vice president insights at ForwardKeys, a consulting firm that tracks travel industry data.

In January, the number of flights to destinations outside mainland China was about 15% of where they were in 2019. The most popular destinations are relatively nearby, including Macau, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul.

For now, Chinese travellers to Thailand, a popular destination, are mostly businesspeople or affluent independent tourists. Thai officials say they expect a slow uptick of visitors as more flight routes open and group tours resume from Feb. 6, but that it could take years for arrivals to return to the levels they were before Covid struck.

China’s contribution to the global economy will ultimately depend on the durability of Chinese consumption. For now, even though Chinese households accumulated $2.6 trillion in fresh savings last year, less than 30% of the money is available to spend straight away. The rest is socked away in long-term savings accounts. The job market is still weak and the real-estate slump is sapping household wealth.

The consumption recovery will be “shallow and short-lived,” according to Logan Wright, director of China markets research at Rhodium Group, a research firm based in New York. He predicts that after a quick surge in growth around the second quarter, the recovery in consumer spending will quickly lose steam.

—Nick Kostov, Eric Sylvers, Feliz Solomon, Rhiannon Hoyle and Jeffrey Sparshott contributed to this article.

Divorce lawyers and couples counsellors see how often money leads to the end of a relationship. When these professionals return home, they put into action several steps to make sure they have a healthy relationship with their finances and their partners.

Lisa Zeiderman, 61 years old, a divorce lawyer in New York, and her husband, Lloyd Zeiderman, an 86-year-old wealth and business manager, spent the better part of their respective careers thinking about money and relationships. They have front-row seats to how financial issues can tear couples apart.

At home and at work, Mrs. Zeiderman preaches “the mailbox rule.”

Every weekend, when she and her husband drive out for breakfast, she stops the car at the end of the driveway and checks the mail. While they share money, he takes the lead on managing their investments and communicating any new developments to his wife. But she said checking the literal receipts—both in the mail and digitally—can offer peace of mind.

“If the credit-card statements are no longer available or passwords are changed or you used to have discussions about money and now you don’t, that may be the sign of something brewing around you,” she said.

Sharing money with a romantic partner leads to greater overall relationship satisfaction, and combining financial power in turn leads to greater wealth for the household, studies have found. Despite these demonstrated benefits, many couples see talking about money as a gateway to more fights and less peace.

But many seasoned legal, financial and counselling professionals say they have seen firsthand the repercussions of letting money problems fester. We asked some of them to share even more lessons they have learned and put to the test in their own relationships.

Talk. All the time. Especially when it is uncomfortable.

“Just talk about it” is some of the most common—and occasionally infuriating—advice quarrelling couples receive. But in practice, maintaining a low-stakes, ongoing daily discussion about expenses, savings and your respective financial habits can lessen the tension many people feel around these money conversations, said Matt Lundquist, the 46-year-old founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy in New York who also counsels couples.

For the Zeidermans, who have been married for almost 25 years, the conversation never stops—and that is intentional, they both say.

“There’s no scheduled sit-down, and it isn’t an organised event,” Mr. Zeiderman said. “But the bill comes in, we talk about it. If we’re buying something for her daughter or my son, we make a joint decision.”

They both admit they aren’t always in perfect agreement. Over the years, Mr. Zeiderman has lent money to an old friend. When she first saw the wire transfer, Mrs. Zeiderman had some questions. But in talking about the issue, she said, they agreed to call a truce: when a particular expense is especially personal to the other partner, they can allow some leeway.

When Mr. Lundquist and his wife of 13 years talk about coming expenses, savings plans or the impact of inflation on their budget, they don’t only talk about the numbers, he said.

“Don’t just sit down and go through the budget, but parallel to that, say ‘how do you feel about that?’” he said. “It’s astonishing how many couples don’t talk about that and the consequences of that.”

Lay it all on the table.

Valentina Shaknes, a 43-year-old New York City lawyer and one of the founding partners at Krauss, Shaknes, Tallentire & Messeri, has become familiar with a certain story: A successful, confident woman in the throes of divorce proceedings realizes how little she knew of the overall household finances.

“They would really rely and defer to their husbands to manage their family finances, which is so different from their professional lives, where they’re running the show,” Ms. Shaknes said.

In divorce proceedings, Ms. Shaknes describes a document she says she has since come to love: the statement of net worth. Each party fills out expenses, income, assets, liabilities and more in granular detail, so that each has the complete picture of the other’s financial situation. Ms. Shaknes recommends couples try doing this exercise while they are still together, rather than waiting until a breakup.

At home, Ms. Shaknes recreates the process with her husband of 23 years. Each time, they discuss mortgage payments, real-estate taxes and credit-card spending, and adjust for new factors like education costs for their children. The exercise may be tedious, but she’s adamant they both have eyes on the numbers.

“Our lives are so full with all of the responsibilities and obligations, and you have to divide and conquer,” she said. “But you also need to know.”

Be willing to change.

Adam Kol, a mediator, tax lawyer and former financial adviser based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., calls himself “The Couples Financial Coach.” When he and his wife got married at the start of 2023, he said they had been sharing money for almost a year, in part to more easily manage the expenses related to their wedding.

At the start of their relationship, Mr. Kol identified as “the saver” and his wife as “the spender.”

They have since learned to spend money on things that enrich their lives, and vice versa. When they were first decorating their apartment, Mr. Kol said his wife took the lead on thrifting many of their artworks. Whenever he looks at the variety of pictures and art, Mr. Kol said he sees a visual representation of the middle road they found together.

“Like all couples, we moderate each other,” he said. “She helps me loosen up a little bit and enjoy the day-to-day.”

Interest rates are rising, inflation is elevated and recession fears linger. Despite all that, employers keep hiring.

The U.S. added 1.1 million jobs over the past three months and ramped up hiring in January. That appears puzzling, given last year’s economic cool down, signs that consumers are pulling back on spending as their savings dwindle, and a stream of corporate layoff announcements, particularly in technology.

Driving the jobs boom are large but often overlooked sectors of the economy. Restaurants, hospitals, nursing homes and child-care centres are finally staffing up as they enter the last stage of the pandemic recovery. Those new jobs are more than offsetting cuts announced by huge employers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Employers in healthcare, education, leisure and hospitality and other services such as dry cleaning and automotive repair account for about 36% of all private-sector payrolls. Together, those service industries added 1.19 million jobs over the past six months, accounting for 63% of all private-sector job gains during that time, up from 47% in the preceding year and a half.

By comparison, the tech-heavy information sector, which shed jobs for two straight months, makes up 2% of all private-sector jobs.

The hiring spree in everyday services shows that the sectors hardest hit in the pandemic’s first months, when 22 million jobs were lost, are continuing to recover. Those gains may prop up the broader economy enough to avoid a recession.

The sectors driving job growth include hotels, hospitals and restaurants, which laid off workers amid pandemic shutdowns and social distancing in 2020. After demand surged during re openings, they started hiring again. But they struggled to land enough new employees and retain existing ones.

Burned out workers quit, finding ample opportunities elsewhere. Job seekers chose other positions that were less physically demanding or allowed them to work from home. Many Americans remained out of the labor force, some worried about illness, some supported by federal benefits and others opting to retire early.

Now, with the effects of the pandemic diminishing, many executives and business owners in services industries say they are finding it easier to recruit and fill jobs.

Eliot McDonald, director of operations at Layne’s Chicken Fingers, said the Texas-based restaurant chain’s four company-owned locations each received about one job application every two weeks between early 2021 and mid-2022. Many employees worked for just a month before quitting. Without enough hourly workers, Mr. McDonald himself would often run the drive-through, prepare chicken fingers and plate food.

In the second half of last year, he said, more job candidates started applying, which he attributed in part to the lure of higher wages. The company’s average hourly wages have risen to $15, from $11 two years ago. Now, all company-owned stores are fully staffed, and Mr. McDonald no longer is helping with hourly worker shifts.

“Knock on wood, things are running like they were before the pandemic,” he said.

In January alone, restaurants and bars added a seasonally adjusted 99,000 jobs. The healthcare industry grew by 58,000, and retailers added 30,000 jobs as fewer holiday-season workers were let go than in past years.

The recovery from pandemic-driven job losses likely will continue to drive employment growth this year, said Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna, Va., pointing to healthcare employers, nursing homes and child-care centres. “These industries absolutely have to hire, and they will keep scouring the labor force, raising wages and using different programs to get people back,” he said.

January’s jobs report showed employers added 517,000 jobs—nearly triple what economists had estimated—and the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, the lowest in more than 53 years. The stronger-than-expected report prompted some forecasters to re-evaluate their views. Goldman Sachs economists reduced the likelihood that the U.S. will enter a recession in the next 12 months to 25%, from 35%, citing the strength of the labour market.

The jobs report was “certainly strong—stronger than anyone I know expected,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday. “It kind of shows you why we think [reducing inflation] will be a process that takes a significant period of time.”

Heading into 2023, forecasters expected the economy to slow and the labor market to deteriorate in the face of higher interest rates stemming from the Fed’s campaign to control inflation. The central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point earlier this month, to a range of 4.5% to 4.75%, a level last reached in 2007.

In December, Fed officials projected that the unemployment rate would rise to 4.6% by the end of this year. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal in January put the probability of a recession in the next 12 months at 61%. They expected U.S. payrolls to decline by 7,000 a month on average this year. It remains possible that a combination of rising interest rates, persistent inflation and slowing consumer spending could tip the U.S. into recession.

But the most recent labor data is consistent with a jobs market coming back into balance after pandemic disruptions, rather than one that is wobbling into a sharp downturn. Wage growth is strong, but slowing, with hourly wages in lower-paying service jobs advancing more rapidly than the private-sector average. Layoffs, outside of a few sectors, remain historically low.

Restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. is now above pre pandemic staffing levels, with turnover rates down. National hospital company HCA Healthcare Inc., which struggled with nursing shortages during the pandemic, is increasing hiring. The nation’s largest private employer, Walmart Inc., is raising wages for U.S. workers to at least $14 an hour, from $12, closing the gap with rivals that pay more.

Business owners, executives and economists say there are several reasons more workers are searching for jobs: bigger pay checks and benefits, diminishing fear of getting sick, and financial worries amid high inflation. The result is that employers, including small-business owners, are finding it easier to fill jobs.

With Covid-19 cases down, fewer workers are concerned about getting or spreading Covid than in the previous two winters when the virus surged. That might be boosting searches for jobs that require close personal contact, such as restaurant server, cafeteria worker and hairdresser. Job seekers also are less likely to be sick with or caring for someone sick with Covid, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hiring in the healthcare services sector, including by hospitals, outpatient centres and nursing homes, has provided a boost to overall jobs numbers because the sector accounts for 16% of all private-sector payrolls.

Healthcare payrolls have grown at a robust pace in recent months as more candidates step forward to meet demand. Job applications for healthcare positions on recruiting platform iCIMS rose 7% from January 2022 through December, while they declined in industries such as manufacturing, finance and technology.

The Houston Methodist hospital system, which employs about 30,000, is finding it easier to fill clinical jobs such as in nursing, said Chief Executive Marc L. Boom. “It is less challenging to hire than it was a year ago,” he said. “We had a significant shortage of staff, in particular registered nurses, radiology technicians and many other clinical, patient-facing roles. But fortunately it’s gotten better.” The hospital made 7,560 external hires in 2022, up from 7,096 in 2021.

As hiring gets easier, the hospital system has stepped back from offering signing bonuses, including $10,000 bonuses for emergency-room nurses who could do evening shifts and for certified respiratory care technicians. The company also is relying less on temporary-staffing agencies than it did in 2020 and 2021.

Still, the system has about 3,000 open jobs to fill, which Dr. Boom said is high.

Hospitals employ many doctors, nurses and specialised technicians, who often earn high salaries. Other corners of the healthcare industry, where pay is lower, are still searching for workers.

Nursing homes are starting to add workers, but have struggled to staff up after shedding employees earlier in the pandemic. Staffers have quit—and stayed away—because of the pay, burnout and fear of Covid. Enhanced unemployment benefits and competing job opportunities also played a role. Nursing homes aren’t expected to return to pre pandemic staffing levels until 2027, according to a January long-term-care jobs report produced by the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living.

Covid-19 drove women out of the workforce at higher rates than men early in the pandemic. Factors including access to child care, virtual schooling, a lack of attractive jobs and health concerns impeded the recovery of female labor-force participation.

More women are flowing back into the labor force, which could help service-sector employers fill positions that traditionally have been held by women. Labor-force participation for women in their prime working years of 25 to 54 returned to pre pandemic levels in January.

Employment in leisure and hospitality, which fell sharply early in the pandemic when restaurants, bars and hotels shut down, also is bouncing back, although it hasn’t yet reached pre pandemic levels.

Since restaurants and hotels haven’t staffed up too much, they could avoid the fate of many tech companies that are laying off workers after over hiring earlier in the pandemic, said Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan who was an economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

Restaurateur Itai Ben Eli, chief executive of Sof Hospitality, which runs Doris Metropolitan steakhouses in Houston and New Orleans and Israeli restaurant Hamsa and Badolina Bakery & Cafe in Houston, said it has become much easier to hire in the past three to four months.

“It’s nothing compared to about 18 months or 24 months ago, when it was almost impossible to hire people,” he said. “We’re definitely seeing a renaissance in terms of people…coming back to the industry.”

He has noticed more applicants for positions such as manager, chef and sous chef, positions that once took him months to fill. Now he is filling them more quickly, without dangling signing bonuses of $1,000 to be paid out after three months.

One steakhouse recently aiming to hire a sous chef, Mr. Ben Eli said, had “too many great candidates, which is a situation that I don’t remember in the past five years happening.”

“We had a tough call deciding who’s going to get the position,” he said. “I wish I had more positions available.”