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labor statistics

The Continuing Incompatible State

By |2017-05-04T19:01:15-04:00May 4th, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

As much as even the major labor market statistics have picked up on slowing, they wouldn’t have in the first quarter of this year presented enough of it to keep productivity positive. With a very low level of output, once again, calculated labor productivity was for the fourth time over the last six quarters negative. According to the BEA, total [...]

Still Nowhere Near Full Employment

By |2017-02-02T18:40:06-05:00February 2nd, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

In addition to all the myriad indications of a serious labor market slowdown last year, despite the fact that the unemployment rate has been 5% or less since September 2015, and in all likelihood was that again in January, there is no indication of any acceleration in wages or earnings. None. The labor market just is not as it is [...]

‘Our Employment Problem’

By |2017-02-02T18:14:59-05:00February 2nd, 2017|Currencies, Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

Productivity in Q4 2016 was estimated to have been 1.29%, suggesting that last quarter was merely bad rather than unusually bad as it had been just before. Productivity during what was the near-recession in the three quarters including and after Q4 2015 was negative in all three. That would suggest, strongly, why labor market statistics have uniformly described a rather [...]

Productivity Circularity

By |2016-08-09T13:23:46-04:00August 9th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

On June 6, Janet Yellen spoke to the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia in what were highly scrutinized comments. The occasion was just a weekend in between the May payroll report that clearly unnerved her and the rest of the FOMC. Prior to that BLS publication, it was believed that a rate hike in June was all but set. Afterward, [...]

Proposing A Contentious Non-Economic Reason For the Huge Jump In The Labor Force (UPDATED)

By |2016-07-18T18:44:48-04:00July 18th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

The most troubling aspect of the payroll reports month after month through the “best jobs market in decades” was how the counted labor force seemed so entirely apathetic to it. If jobs were suddenly plentiful, it would stand to reason that Americans and the deep pool of them sidelined since the Great Recession would be lining up to participate. Because [...]

Where It All Went Wrong

By |2016-04-26T15:49:48-04:00April 26th, 2016|Economy, Federal Reserve/Monetary Policy, Markets|

With the housing recovery, it is perhaps because it has been much more visible and earnest that the disparity is more easily appreciated and understood. Prices have surged in some places as much as the housing mania portion of the great bubble of the 2000’s, yet that has taken place despite levels of overall activity at only fractions of that [...]

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