Daily update
Daily update
- Today, a group of people with English literature degrees will gush about data that people with economics degrees know to be wrong—it is US employment report Friday. Data shows there is no net job creation, or booming job creation. Job offers are high, but real wages are low. Markets obsess about average hourly earnings, which are not wages (the number of low skilled workers employed impacts the data—incidentally, members of Congress are being paid for this week).
- There clearly has been a structural shift in global labor markets. While job offer numbers are high relative to unemployment, they are not especially high relative to hirings. Job offers are being filled. This suggests ongoing churn in the labor market, with people moving companies more than normal.
- Eurozone consumer price inflation data will reflect the lower numbers of the major European economies. German retail sales were weaker than expected in November, but (of course) were revised higher for October. Factory orders were weak and astonishingly were not revised stronger—this may reflect the global shift away from consumption of goods.
- The American Economic Association is meeting in New Orleans; such an event inevitably attracts the partygoers of the central bank community, several of whom will be speaking.
