After showing a little bit of acceleration late in 2018, the pace of wage gains appears to have flattened out. This also squares up with the anecdotal evidence. While employers cite the lack of available labor as the biggest impediment to further growth, they also have shown no willingness to induce more people to work for them through higher wages. Subscribe now!

The news on earnings continues to be lackluster, at least from the standpoint of those who are receiving the paychecks. Aside from a brief spurt early in the expansion, the pace of earnings growth has lagged that seen in earlier recoveries. Subscribe now!

The acceleration in the pace of hiring is not surprising given the amount of stimulus that was applied to the economy early last year. The question now is whether the latest uptrend can be sustained. Concerns center around the effects of the trade war and headwinds from the rise in interest rates. Subscribe now!

NoSpinFORECAST’s Robert F. Dieli, PhD was quoted in this MEMA article: Challenging (Not Necessarily Bad) Year Predicted for Trucking Act Date: January 30, 2019 Source: Denise Rondini, Truckinginfo.com The economic activity affecting trucking could see a challenging year, according to Bob Dieli, president and founder of RDLB Inc., an economic research and management consulting firm, […]

The big headline number did not change the shape, or the message, of this chart. We continue to add to payrolls at a pace consistent with what we have seen in prior expansions. Subscribe now!

The line on this chart continues to slope up. And that is, in the long run, all that matters. There was nothing in the report to suggest that the Federal Reserve need to move away from its recently stated position that it would wait for more data before deciding on further changes to the target Federal Funds rate. The January numbers are […]

Many commentators missed the effect of the revisions to the prior data had on the headline Establishment number. Much was made of the fact that the headline number was well above the consensus estimate of a gain of 164,000 jobs. The number net of revisions that you see below the chart is a much better […]

The rise in the unemployment rate overshadowed a major plus. That being the gain in full-time employment. This is always welcome news. Subscribe now!

I am tired of the folks who are pointing to this chart and saying “new record high!” That has been true since March of 2014 when we took out the high that had been set prior to the last recession. Give it a rest. The December numbers are good, as they should be. They represent […]

The robust growth in employment continues to be confined to the hiring aspect of the phenonomen and not the compensation part of the phenomenon. The pace of weekly earnings growth just can’t seem to sustain what little momentum it has built over the past several months. Subscribe now!