LAST WEEK

News & Commentary Weekly Highlights:

• Wall Street Journal: Analysis: Strong Jobs Report Strengthens Case for December Fed Rate Liftoff (Friday)
• CNBC: Chart: What’s the real unemployment rate? (Friday)
• Market Watch: The Real Impact of a Decade of Low Interest Rates (Thursday)
• Bloomberg: Greenspan’s Nightmare Chart Spoils Labor Department Data Party (Monday)
• CNN Money: Is U.S. Manufacturing Signaling a Recession? (Monday)

 

Top Economic Indicator Highlights:

Productivity and Costs (preliminary, Q3)

Nonfarm Business Sector

• Productivity (output per hour, annual rate): 1.6%, Recovery avg.: 1.1%

• Output: 1.2%
• Hours: -0.5%

• Real hourly compensation: 1.4% annual rate
• Unit labor costs: 1.4%, reflecting a 3.0% increase in nominal hourly compensation and a 1.6% increase in productivity
• Noteworthy: Real nonfarm business sector productivity grew 0.4% from the third quarter of 2014. Productivity growth for the first and second quarters of 2015 are revised to -1.1% and 3.5%, respectively. The decline in hours worked in the third quarter was the first decline in the series since a 4.8% decrease in the third quarter of 2009. Annual growth in real compensation per hour in the nonfarm business sector grew 1.1% for 2014 and fell 0.4% in 2013.

 

THIS WEEK

Upcoming Economic Reports & Releases:

Major Indicators

• Labor Market Conditions Index (10am, Monday)
• Import and Export Prices (8:30am, Tuesday)
• Wholesale Trade (10am, Tuesday)
• Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (10am, Thursday)
• Treasury Budget (2pm, Thursday)
• Producer Price Index for Final Demand (8:30am, Friday)
• Retail Sales (8:30am, Friday)
• Business Inventories (10am, Friday)

 

Chart of the Week: 

The chart above shows there are approximately 2.6 million Americans in their prime working years, age 25 to 54, out of the workforce that want a job, but a number of reasons are holding them back from reentering the workforce. As the chart demonstrates, the number of Americans out of the workforce that want a job remains elevated in the aftermath of the recession. Not shown is the approximate 21 million prime working-age Americans that are out of the workforce and do not want a job now; this number is elevated an additional 2.4 million compared to before the recession (adjusting for population changes).