This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly Employment Situation Summary, known as the Jobs Report, showing another month of continued job gains.
This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly Employment Situation Summary, known as the Jobs Report, showing another month of continued job gains. Adding 275,000 jobs for the month of February, above consensus predictions of 200,000 jobs added, the continued expansion of the U.S. labor market following the COVID-induced economic crisis of 2020 is beyond my expectations from experiences of the Great Recession and studying previous modern recessions. Job growth has also continued alongside wage growth, with workers gaining real income as inflation has cooled. Despite evidence that some structural disparities remain, namely higher unemployment of Black and Latinx workers, the labor market continues to chug along in a positive direction.
Despite the good news, there is always a hesitancy that hangs in the air when the Jobs Report is “too good.” This is because economists and business commentators fret over the risk of an overheating economy, heading us back toward inflation (despite a lack of evidence that a tight labor market caused inflation in recent years) or a bubble that can burst (like the housing bubble that impacted the Great Recession).
But productivity data released last month points toward another pathway. As labor productivity and output increased 3.
