Nonfarm Productivity

December 6, 2023 Non-farm productivity jumped 5.2% in the third quarter after climbing 3.6% in the second quarter after having declined 0.8% in the first quarter of this year.  The second quarter increase consisted of a 6.1% increase in output combined with a 0.9%...

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Unit Labor Costs

December 6, 2023 Unit labor costs might be a term that is not familiar to you.  Unit labor costs represent the increase in compensation adjusted for the gains in productivity.  You might think that if labor costs are rising that would put upward pressure on...

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Hourly Compensation

December 6, 2023 The Bureau of Labor Statistics  indicated that hourly compensation rose 3.9% in the third quarter after jumping 6.2% in the second quarter and 6.5% in the first quarter.  In the past year compensation has risen 4.0-%. Growth in hourly compensation...

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ADP Employment

December 6, 2023 As shown above the ADP survey shows a respectable correlation with the private sector portion of the payroll employment data to be released a couple of days later.  And well it should.  ADP, or Automatic Data Processing, Inc. is a provider of...

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Job Openings

December 5, 2023 The  Labor Department reported that job openings fell 617 thousand in October to 8,733 thousand after having fallen 147 thousand in September.  The pace of economic activity has been slowing a bit, but the labor market keeps hanging in there fairly...

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Car and Truck Sales

December 4, 2023 Unit car and truck sales fell 0.7% in November to 15.323 million after having declined 1.6% in October.   Vehicle sales rose quickly after touching bottom in May of last year,   The supply challenges that had curtailed car sales for more than two...

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Construction Spending

December 1, 2023 Construction spending (the green bars above) rose 0.6% in October after climbing 0.2% in September and 2.1% in August  This is the tenth consecutive increase in construction spending.   In the past 12 months it has risen 10.7%.  As indicated ...

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