Huge numbers. December and January revised up. Participation rate is up. U3 is down to 3.8%. Wage and price pressure are going to keep increasing and the Fed probably feels very comfortable raising rates with employment this strong.
Here in DC things are still dead in the middle of the day, but maybe that’s a DC thing. In Annapolis where I live covid effectively ended more than a year ago, apart from the punitive measures on kids. I was talking with a guy who worked for a new local restaurant chain (just two locations near Annapolis) that opened last year. He was shocked to hear things were so bad in DC, because they had a gangbusters opening year.
Also in DC. The jobs are coming back but the work is still remote. My office has moved to hybrid schedule of 3 days in office (tues-thurs) and remote Mon, Fri. I know many other offices that are still remote however, and only just now starting to discuss RTO procedures.
Not to mention "core hours" becoming a thing even on in-person days for many offices meaning it's no longer as much of a thing to get out of the office for lunch at noon if you're only there until 3 or 4.
> In February, the unemployment rate edged down to 3.8 percent, and the number of unemployed persons edged down to 6.3 million. In February 2020, prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, and the number of unemployed persons was 5.7 million. (See table A-1.) [1]
In terms of total number of jobs, it looks like we'er still a smidge below pre-pandemic, but we also haven't seen full recovery of the size of the labor force.
> but we also haven't seen full recovery of the size of the labor force
Roughly 3 million people left the labor force between retirements, inability to work due to lack of childcare and similar, or death. Immigration is also negligible due to border closures. Labor force ain't coming back.
Anecdotally, every person in my circle who is in their early 60s is just holding on for Medicare (age 65) and their full retirement age to collect Social Security.
The childcare issue is almost certainly due to pandemic and will definitely come back. Immigration was also slowed by pandemic. The retirement issue is due to retiring boomers and will work itself out as the population gets younger. Declining fertility will likely lead to less robust labor force even while participation rate increases.
If wages stay strong, and there is no subsidy for childcare, those parents aren't coming back to the workforce. They'll stay home and raise their kids, as they'll have no other choice. Point me at a your average childcare facility, and I can have those employees hired away to better jobs (less responsibility) paying more within the day, even if your skills are only early childcare education or similar (average pay is $11/hour for this work, which isn't sustainable in the current macro, my local Target is paying $17-24/hr for retail). It's a market failure, demonstrating the US doesn't value parent workers who require this service.
The population isn't getting younger due to the rapidly declining total fertility rate, so you're going to experience a labor "squeeze", having a bunch of folks leaving the labor force and a smaller working population having their wages rapidly pushed up. Immigration will remain a challenge due to the political climate not being supportive of it.
For your average worker, it's a net benefit as long as the surging wages last (and inflation subsides as interest rates rise, which will also push asset prices down), even more so if organizing efforts across the country continue.
Do you mean is 678,000 jobs added in February, 2022 more than the number of jobs added in February, 2020? Or do you mean are the total number of jobs in the US in February, 2022 higher than the total number of the jobs in February, 2020? Or something else?
Hard to get excited for this with WTI Crude at $110 and nothing to stop oil prices and inflation besides demand destruction from a recession.
A .5 hike is already off the table for the March Fed meeting.
To me it feels like we are racing towards a miserable stagflation environment with our stimulus tools never reloaded.
Massively lagging data points look good though so we must be on the right path!
I think it was Stanley Druckenmiller that said he made most of his money by betting that the Fed is always wrong. The older I get the more brilliant this strategy seems.
> To me it feels like we are racing towards a miserable stagflation environment
Please stop this. Words have meanings, and you should not misuse them just because you want to add extra emotional valence to your post. "Stagflation" is when there is inflation even though there is no growth in GDP and/or employment. Right now there are massive gains in both, and while you could make an argument that the benefits of the growth are outweighed by the inflation, it is not stagflation in any sense, nor is stagflation likely to be on the horizon (if there is a recession, the demand destruction will cool off prices, especially as covid ends and demand flows back from goods to services)
Huge numbers. December and January revised up. Participation rate is up. U3 is down to 3.8%. Wage and price pressure are going to keep increasing and the Fed probably feels very comfortable raising rates with employment this strong.