Bill Mitchell — US labour market – employment and participation up, but still no obvious wage pressures

Last Friday (February 4, 2022), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – January 2022 – which reported a total payroll employment rise of only 467,000 jobs in December and a rise in the participation rate – which often leads to a rise in the unemployment rate as marginal workers outside the labour force sense their opportunities for work are now better. Employment growth accelerated in January 2022 which reverses the recent trend. 0.3 points decline in the official unemployment rate to 3.9 per cent, while participation was unchanged at 61.9 per cent. While the US labour market is still creating work – it is doing so at a declining rate and there are unequal patterns across the industrial sectors. The US labour market is still 2,875 thousand jobs short from where it was at the end of February 2020, which helps to explain why there are no fundamental wage pressures emerging. Any analyst who is claiming the US economy is close to full employment hasn’t looked at the data....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
US labour market – employment and participation up, but still no obvious wage pressures
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia