Construction Spending

June 1, 2023 Construction spending (the green bars above) rose 1.2% in April after climbing 0.3% in March and jumping 2.4% in March.   In the past 12 months it has risen 7.2%.  As indicated  below, spending on the construction of single-family housing has declined...

Nonfarm Productivity

June 1, 2023 Non-farm productivity felll 2.1% in the first quarter of this year after  having risen 1.6% in the fourth quarter.  The first quarter decline consisted of a 0.5% increase in output combined with a 2.6% increase in hours worked. Hence, a 2.1% decline in...

Unit Labor Costs

June 1, 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...

Hourly Compensation

June 1, 2023 The Bureau of Labor Statistics  indicated that hourly compensation rose 2.1 % in the first quarter after fallen by 0.7% in the fourth quarter of last year.  In the past year compensation has risen 3.0%. Growth in hourly compensation is a good thing, but...

ADP Employment

June 1, 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...