Category Archives: employment

Lest You Be Lulled by the NFP Release: Employment Growth 1 yr before Recessions

Figure 1: M/m annualized growth rate in nonfarm payroll employment in the runup to 2007-09 recession (red), to 2001 recession (teal), and assumed 2020 recession starting in January (dark blue). NBER defined recession dates shaded gray, starting at peak. Source: BLS via FRED, ALFRED, and author’s calculation.

Update, 5:30pm Pacific:

Forward looking indicators continue to suggest a slowdown.

Figure 2: US economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index, 7 day centered moving average (gray, left scale), 10 year-3 month Treasury spread (blue, right scale), and 10 year-2 year Treasury spread (red, right scale), both in percentage points. Light orange shading denotes Trump administration, orange denotes Federal government closures. Source: policyuncertainty.com, and Federal Reserve Board via FRED, and Bloomberg (for 2/1).

Is California in Recession? (Part XIII)

December employment figures are out. Time to re-evaluate this assessment from a year ago in Political Calculations that California was in recession.

Going by these [household survey based labor market] measures, it would appear that recession has arrived in California, which is partially borne out by state level GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. [text as accessed on 12/27/2017]

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Is California in Recession? (Part XI)

November employment figures are out. Time to re-evaluate this assessment from a year ago in Political Calculations that California was in recession.

Going by these [household survey based labor market] measures, it would appear that recession has arrived in California, which is partially borne out by state level GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. [text as accessed on 12/27/2017]

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Factors in Unemployment Dynamics

That’s the topic of a new FEDS Note that I just published with Hie Joo Ahn. Here’s what we discuss:

The U.S. unemployment rate averaged 8.4% during the first five years of recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the weakest recovery on record. But as the expansion continued, unemployment continued to decline and by 2018 reached the lowest levels in almost half a century. Why did unemployment remain so high for so long, and what factors contributed to the recent lows?