,
4 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
JOBS REPORT: +136k in September, +45k in revisions, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5% for the good reason that more people were working.
Wages are only up 2.9% in the past year, though.
Wages are only up 2.9% in the past year, though.
Here’s the big puzzle. We’d expect job growth to slow down when the unemployment rate gets this low because there simply aren’t as many people looking for jobs. That’s happening.
But we’d also expect wage growth to pick up as a result. That’s not. The opposite actually!
But we’d also expect wage growth to pick up as a result. That’s not. The opposite actually!
Wage growth tends to be very noisy, but still… Average hourly earnings have *fallen* from 3.4% at the beginning of the year to just 2.9% now.
If 3.5% unemployment isn’t enough to get better wage growth, what will be?
If 3.5% unemployment isn’t enough to get better wage growth, what will be?
One piece of good news is that the share of prime-age workers who are in fact working is almost back to where it was before the 2008 crisis.
But still a ways to go before it’s back to where it was before the 2001 recession.
But still a ways to go before it’s back to where it was before the 2001 recession.
