Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The Growing Number of Metro Areas With Unemployment Under 3%

This is not what a recession looks like.

Twice as many metro areas now have unemployment rates under 3% compared with a year ago, reports WSJ.

The number of metro areas with ultralow jobless rates more than doubled to 25 in December 2014 from December 2015, according to the Labor DepartmentThe number of metro areas with ultralow jobless rates more than doubled to 25 in December 2014 from December 2015, according to the Labor Department.

Overall, unemployment rates were lower in December than a year earlier in 296 of the 387
metropolitan areas, higher in 79 areas, and unchanged in 12 areas

 -RW

4 comments:

  1. You do not think that number of people employed part time and in temp jobs has any bearing on this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No. People working part time for economic reasons has fallen.

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  2. I will take the inverted yield curve over "employment" metrics, simply because market metrics are more reliable than political ones. Market statistics such as credit spreads, commodity prices do not reflect a boom. GDP, unemployment, cpi are potemkin statistics and are not to be trusted.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The yield curve is not inverted and gasoline demand is higher than it was a year ago: https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/weekly/images/gtpsusm.gif

      Delete