Employment

After what appeared to be (on the surface and at first glance) a hot January, the labor market data for February 2024 signaled a return to the narrative we followed throughout last year: the labor market is slowing, but remains strong.

For decades, “jobless recovery” has been a watchword in the aftermath of each recession. But in the 1990s—and today—we saw a fully recovered labor market.

"The Dream of the 90's" examines the macroeconomic conditions that led to strong growth in the late-1990s and what policies can revive that productivity growth today.

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

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