Late comment, here’s a picture of the job-to-worker gap for November based on JOLTS data:
figure 1: Jobs – Worker Gap, 000’s, sa (blue, left scale) and Gap, %, sa (tan, right scale). Dates of peak-to-trough recessions as defined by NBER are shaded in gray. Source: BLS JOLTS data from FRED, NBER and author’s calculations.
Note that the gap is still large, so the labor market remains tight (in fact, the gap is at its maximum in the first half of 2022). Looking further, the layoff rate is still far from the hiring rate.
figure 2: Non-farm employment (blue) and non-farm employment. (Brown). Dates of peak-to-trough recessions as defined by NBER are shaded in gray. Source: BLS JOLTS data from FRED and authors’ calculations.
The resignation rate actually rose in November.In my opinion, the labor market is still quite tight, I observe monday market.
Are we in a recession as of November?We can use the suggested employment worker gap business cycle indicator Pavel Skrzypzynski at this postal, which is equal to the difference between the current gap and the largest gap over the past 12 months. The 2022M11 value of -0.89 is still above the -0.93 threshold – but it’s getting closer as time goes on (it actually breached the threshold, as I calculated it, before suddenly crossing it in August).
