Categories:
Labor Market
The BLS reports (note that by next month this link will be to a new report) that payroll employment over the past three months has increased by an average of 245,000 jobs. One of the patterns that Ed Leamer found in Macroeconomic Patterns and Stories is that employment has a lot of momentum. Given the average over the past three months, it is very likely that employment growth will be strong in the months ahead. At least, that is what past patterns would predict, even if your mood says otherwise.
READER COMMENTS
Yancey Ward
Mar 9 2012 at 10:30am
However, they haven’t had much “momentum” since the recovery from the recession. Indeed, the jobs growth is similar to what we saw last Spring, and weaker than we saw in the Spring of 2010. Link
DougT
Mar 9 2012 at 12:03pm
On one side you have the accelerationistas, who say we are on the cusp of a bright new day. Hiring begets spending begets hiring until you run out of workers, which given the 12.8mm still unemployed, will take a while.
On the other side you have seasonalities, who note that the warm winter allowed us to have spring in February, and that seasonal factors have magnified an otherwise tepid recovery. According to them, we will have snow in April and the hope that springs eternal will become the pause that disappoints.
At least one story will be wrong. Bets?
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