Last Friday (May 6, 2022), the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – April 2022 – which reported a total payroll employment rise of only 428,000 jobs and an official unemployment rate of 3.6 per cent. However, the Labour Force survey provided the opposite impression with employment and the participation rate falling. It is difficult at this stage to reconcile the two messages except to say that the US labour market has probably reached an inflection point and a deterioration is emerging as the Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates. The US labour market is still 1,190 thousand payroll jobs short from where it was at the end of April 2020, which helps to explain why there are no wage pressures emerging. Real wages continued to decline as the supply disruptions and the greed of increased corporate profit margin push sustain the inflationary pressures. 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 showing signs of faltering as real wages continue to decline
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
I dunno if Bill has seen these....
ReplyDeleteMy favourite band of all time ever since I was 12. Nobody has even come close in my opinion.
Still pick any album and listen to it once a week in the bath.
Better than the original versions and fits what's happening the world to a T.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P_m2CZU9vdk
And
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9lCFaSL9aSE
428k jobs in April.
ReplyDelete3.6% UE rate.
Real disposable income above pre-pandemic and the entire Trump presidency.
Not sure what Bill Mitchell is talking about. Maybe he should concentrate on Australia.
"
ReplyDeletewhich reported a total payroll employment rise of only 428,000 jobs and an official unemployment rate of 3.6 per cent. However, the Labour Force survey provided the opposite impression with employment and the participation rate falling. It is difficult at this stage to reconcile the two messages except to say that the US labour market has probably reached an inflection point and a deterioration is emerging as the Federal Reserve continues to hike interest rates. The US labour market is still 1,190 thousand payroll jobs short from where it was at the end of April 2020, which helps to explain why there are no wage pressures emerging. Real wages continued to decline as the supply disruptions and the greed of increased corporate profit margin push sustain the inflationary pressures. Any analyst who is claiming the US economy is close to full employment hasn’t looked at the data.
Overview for April 2022
Payroll employment increased by 428,000.
Total labour force survey employment fell by 353 thousand net (-0.22 per cent).
The seasonally adjusted labour force fell by 363 thousand net (-0.22 per cent).
The employment-population ratio fell 0.1 points to 60 per cent (it is still lower than the April 2020 peak of 61.2).
Official unemployment fell by 11 thousand to 5,941 thousand.
The official unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.6 per cent.
The participation rate fell 0.2 points to 62.2 per cent.
The broad labour underutilisation measure (U6) rose 0.1 points to 7 per cent as underemployment increased.
For those who are confused about the difference between the payroll (establishment) data and the household survey data you should read this blog post – US labour market is in a deplorable state – where I explain the differences in detail.
Some months the difference is small, while other months, the difference is larger.
The differences were quite large this month."
Total non farm is still about 1M below prepandemic…, either at +423k per month we’ll be back in a few months or those people retired and are gone perhaps permanently…
ReplyDeleteFedi increasing the cost of credit not going to help firms increase productivity…
ReplyDelete