Last week we got the GDP and wages and salaries for Q1, as well as the employment and coincident indicators for May. With this data, we have the following picture.
Figure 1: Wisconsin Nonfarm Payroll Employment (blue), Philadelphia Fed preliminary NFP benchmark estimate (pink), Public Employment (tan), real wages and wages deflated by national CPI bound (sky blue), GDP ( red), coincident index (green) , all in log 2021M11=0. Source: BLS, BEA, Philadelphia Fed [1], [2]and the author’s figures.
GDP shows downward trend in 2024Q1. However, many other indicators point to continued growth in Q1 and beyond. In particular, wages and salaries (currently about 52% of total income, and 46% of GDP) are reduced by CPI chains that continue to grow.
Both measures of employment (CES, CPS based) have been lower since January/February of this year, suggesting an increase in employment. On the other hand, the casualty index – based on additional labor market data – shows a steady increase.
Overall, we continued with mixed indicators, either growing or trending sideways.
Source link