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by kiklion 1683 days ago
This is kind of ignoring that we don’t have high unemployment and our labor participation rate is nearly recovered as well.

So anyone who wants a job, basically has one. A company raising wages isn’t going to create new labor by hiring an unemployed person, they are going to move labor by hiring one of their competitors employees. This doesn’t reduce the markets labor shortage.
2 comments
s1artibartfast 1683 days ago
>our labor participation rate is nearly recovered as well.

I don't think this is true. Labor participation dropped a couple percent, made up about half the loss, then has been about the same since June 2020

Jan 2020 83%

June 2020 81.5%

OCT 2021 81.7%

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060

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aksss 1683 days ago
Unemployment is about where it was in 2017, which continued to drop all the way until 2020. So not as low as it was pre-pandemic, but objectively quite low, yes. Doesn't take away from your point.

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

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s1artibartfast 1683 days ago
U-3 unemployment is a garbage metric for most applications because it ignores anyone who has given up or underemployed.

U-6 is a much better metric that doesn't sweep these factors under the rug.

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