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Labor: Normal
How easy it is to find work and how fast pay is rising. Labor market strength is close to its 20-year middle.
Score 0.66 on a −2 to +2 scale: the average of 5 indicators, each placed by where today sits in its last 20 years. Indicators where a higher number means less labor market strength are flipped.
Indicators
Connections
Layoff filings show up weekly, before the monthly jobless rate moves. Typical lag: 1-3 months. Strongest match 1 month later (correlation 0.81, 366 observations since 1996).
Fewer openings usually means slower hiring ahead. Typical lag: 1-6 months. Strongest match 1 month later (correlation 0.56, 298 observations since 2001).
New businesses tend to hire once they get going. Typical lag: 6-12 months. Strongest match 10 months later (correlation 0.27, 228 observations since 2007).
Wage growth minus inflation = whether households are getting ahead. Typical lag: same month. Strongest match 12 months later (correlation 0.53, 222 observations since 2007).
Credit stress tends to come before layoffs. Typical lag: 3-9 months. Not enough overlapping history to test yet.
Job losses make it harder to keep up with payments. Typical lag: 1-4 quarters. The strongest pattern runs the other way: correlation -0.45 6 quarters later (122 observations since 1996).
An inverted 10Y-3M curve (below zero) has come before every U.S. recession since the 1960s, usually by a year or more. Typical lag: 12-24 months. The strongest pattern runs the other way: correlation 0.26 in the same period (352 observations since 1996).