The latest employment numbers suggest that the tide has turned.
Category Archives: employment
Three Pictures from the Labor Market
From yesterday’s White House press conference:
More murk in the crystal ball
Some good news, some bad, in the economic data released yesterday.
How Much Stimulus? Dollar Amounts versus Efficacy
The stimulus package seems near a done deal, and the critiques are abounding — as they should be. Greg Mankiw says no fiscal stimulus package is necessary, given the current state of the economy. Andrew Samwick says implementing a stimulus package ill conceived given that excessive deficits are what got us into this mess (a view I have some sympathy with). Jim Hamilton argues that a properly constructed fiscal stimulus is unlikely to be implemented in time, and may additionally further erode the dollar’s role as a safe haven. Paul Krugman argues that the structure of the package leaves much to be desired.
Why One Percent of GDP? Opportunity Cost Illustrated (Part III)
As the decoupling thesis becomes more and more tenuous [1], and the rest of the world exhibits greater evidence of a slowdown [2], [3], [4], leading to predictions of a more persistent and deeper slump in the US than previously anticipated [5], I wonder — where did that presciption of a one percentage point of GDP fiscal stimulus come from?
What Are the Prospects for a Two Recession Bush Presidency?
With recession calls becoming more frequent ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5]) it might pay to revisit the indicators that the NBER looks at in determining the turning points in recessions (The fact that NBER put up some new recession-dating-FAQs just a couple days ago might be a leading indicator of sorts).
Economic indicators take a turn for the worse
No cheer for the New Year from the numbers released this week.
Trusting the birth/death model
Ray Stone of Stone & McCarthy Research Associates has some interesting observations on the quality of the payroll employment numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Are the employment numbers as good as they sound?
This week’s GDP and employment numbers were a pleasant surprise. Should this cause the Fed to change its warning in Wednesday’s FOMC minutes that
the pace of economic expansion will likely slow in the near term.
Employment plunge was a big oops
As many of us were anticipating, today’s employment data released by the BLS showed substantially stronger job growth for September.