[lbo-talk] unemployment rate getting too low!

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat May 14 08:07:41 PDT 2005


Autoplectic wrote:


>Slowing the pace of job creation is not the same as increasing the
>level of unemployment...............

Sure it is, as long as the population is increasing. The thinking behind this is that the labor market has become too taut - i.e., there's not enough slack, i.e., unemployment is too low - which is pushing up wages. One problem with this theory is that it's not direct pay that's pushing up unit labor costs (which are rising, and ULC lead inflation pretty reliably), but the cost of fringe benefits, meaning health insurance.

It's a little odd to see this coming from Goldman, which is usually more "liberal" than other Wall Street houses.

Doug



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