Labor Markets

One argument that the labor market is to blame for high inflation has been the significant rise in unit labor costs during the post-pandemic recovery. The most recent example comes from the ECB:

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

This monitor is a reflection of how we update our assessments of economic growth in real-time as we get meaningful updates from macroeconomic data releases. It provides a more timely and meaningful gauge of economic activity growth than what GDP and similar summary indicators provide. Please see here for more

The data from the May labor market shows continued renormalization of the labor market, with strong employment, continued slowing of wage growth, and reduced churn.

This preview was originally published two days ago. It has been updated to reflect the additional information from JOLTS and the flurry of Fedspeak yesterday. Baseline View Slower job growth, slower wage growth, an unemployment rate that might fall to a new record low. In light of mixed JOLTS report

Contrary to the expectations of Fed officials, labor force participation growth has been strong over the last six months. In this piece, I use Current Population Survey microdata, correct for measurement issues, and show that an increase in labor force entry played a significant role in this recent…