📈  Chart of the Week 9/22/2024
By Mike Allison
As most folks know, the Federal Reserve Bank lowered short term interest rates by 50 basis points (0.50%) this past week. This marks the beginning of the reversal of their monetary tightening cycle, which began in early 2022 to address the rapid post-Pandemic increase in inflation.
The move was precipitated by continued declines in the rate of inflation which has been trending down for over a year. This decline in the inflation rate has been driven by a number of factors: a repair of Pandemic related supply chain disruptions, decline in the cost of housing (namely Owner’s Equivalent Rent, which is a very slow moving data series), and a modest softening of the job market in the U.S.
Inflation has not yet reached the Fed’s target rate of 2%, a level that I continue to believe is unrealistic. Based on demographic changes in the U.S. and most of the developed world, I just don’t think it’s in the cards.
This week’s Chart highlights the tightness of the labor market as expressed by the number of job vacancies compared to the number of unemployed workers. This measure began to tighten as the economy emerged from the depths of the Great Financial Crisis.
Though distorted by the Pandemic and its aftermath, we can see that, particularly in the U.S. (black line), labor market tightness has resumed its upward trend which began in 2010.
My expectation is that for perhaps a decade or more, demographically-driven labor shortages and an aging workforce will put a floor on inflation which is likely to be, in my opinion, in the 3-3.5% range rather than the Fed’s target rate of 2%.
The light Aqua line in the Chart depicting Japan's labor market tightness is a precursor to what I believe we can expect to see in the U.S. and in most of Europe.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)-led productivity gains in many white collar jobs will relieve some of the pressure in the labor market. However, in sectors of the economy where AI can't effectively enhance productivity, labor shortages will only worsen, leading to continued labor market tightness and persistent upward pressure on inflation, making for a higher floor that monetary policy alone is unlikely to address.
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