Monday, January 13, 2014

US December Labour Market Data

Some of the US labour market stats were "strong"; other "weak".  So what I did was create a labour market composite index of the labour market variables I consider key.

The chart below (click on it to get it full size; and apologies for its less-than-satisfactory readability --- I'm still working on the program which I wrote to create graphs and indices) shows the year on year % change in real GDP and my index.  Consider this a work in progress, which it (especially the plotting program) is.  The shaded areas show the periods of NBER-determined US recessions.  Note how the labour market index starts turning down before the recession and turns up slightly before or coincident with the beginning of recovery.  Key point: note that there are no signs of an impending downturn.







The chart below shows the same series for a shorter period. The conclusion is clear. Remember that GDP "data" tend to get revised a lot, especially for recent years.




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