Wall Street Journal (February 5)
“The January jobs report wasn’t as bad as the markets seemed to take it… But then it wasn’t stellar either.” New jobs didn’t rise as much as expected, but there were wage gains and the labor participation rate rose as well. “We’ll hope for the best,” though the “overriding problem continues to be a lack of business confidence and investment.” This “leads to slower growth, which gives the U.S. economy a lower margin for absorbing growth shocks from around the world.”
Tags: Confidence, Growth, Investment, Jobs report, Labor participation, Markets, Shocks, U.S., Wage gains
New York Times (July 4)
The U.S. jobs report brought welcome news: 288,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate hit 6.1%, the lowest since September 2008. “Behind the good news, however, there is still enormous slack in the economy. Human capital is being wasted. Economic ground is being lost, often irretrievably.”
Tags: Economy, Human capital, Jobs report, Slack, U.S., Unemployment rate
