Our Labor Market Analysis goes beyond conventional unemployment statistics to assess the true health of the job market. We track prime-age (25-54) employment rates, various wage growth measures, and job dynamism indicators like quits and hires to measure labor market tightness.
Labor Market Analysis
Read the Latest
Read the Latest
28 Posts
AI may be a hot topic, but there isn't strong evidence that it’s responsible for the weaker labor market for recent college graduates.
OBBBA not only directly reduces support for Americans facing material insecurity, but it also heightens the risk and impact of a future economic downturn.
May 02, 2025
So far, pain from the tariffs has not shown up in any obvious way in the labor market data, and it may not for a few months.
Layoffs are important, but focusing on layoffs risks missing the other part of the equation: hiring.
An earlier version of this piece erroneously attributed this to the wrong author. The author is Preston Mui. Last Friday, we learned that the unemployment rate in August 2023 increased to 3.8% to 3.5%. The employment-to-population ratio was flat at 60.4%, and labor force participation increased to
Sep 03, 2023
Summary The main purpose of real-time macroeconomic data releases is to track the evolution in the underlying growth rate of economic activity. The precise levels of employment, wages, total hours, and total dollars of payroll expenditure are less meaningful, and most ripe for substantial revision over time. But even short-run
Labor Markets
|
Jun 05, 2023
One popular narrative thread throughout the post-pandemic labor market was the “Great Resignation.” During the recovery, workers have been quitting their jobs at rates never seen before in the data. Many explanations have been proffered for this phenomenon, such as changing life priorities, workers reevaluating what they want out of
In our labor market recap for March 2023, I described the state of the labor market as “a goldilocks labor market, with strong employment, increasing labor supply, and sustainable levels of wage growth.” However, there is at least one cloud in an otherwise clear sky: the number of unemployed permanent
Banking
|
Mar 30, 2023
There's a great deal of literature on the connection between tighter credit conditions, economic activity, hiring, and inflation. Very large body of literature. The question is, how significant will this credit tightening be and how sustainable it will be. Jerome Powell, March 22, 2023 FOMC Press Conference In
