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...
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,...
The August 2023 labor market data points to a labor market that, while strong and not recessionary, is certainly slowing down more starkly than earlier this year. The...
In a recent Barron’s article, I examined why last year’s predictions that fighting inflation would require an increase in the unemployment rate went so wrong. The flaws in these predictions can be traced back to three ideas: first, that vacancies are a good measure of labor market tightness; second
