I appeared on Bloomberg TV's Balance of Power with Joe Mathieu and Kailey Leinz on Thursday, May 2 to preview the Bureau of Labor Statistics' April jobs and unemployment report and to discuss the state of the economy and the condition of the U.S. labor movement. Watch the video here:
I accurately predicted that jobs growth in April would slow to a more moderate, but still strong pace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added 175,000 jobs in April as compared with 256,000 in January, 236,000 in February, and 315,000 in March. The unemployment rate ticked up a little bit to 3.9% continuing a more-than-two-year period of unemployment rates at or below 4%. I explain in the video why I predicted that job growth would slow down.
BLS also reported a slowed rate of wage growth --- only 0.2% from March to April and 3.9% over the last 12 months. That's faster than inflation, which is very good news for workers, but the slower pace indicates some slippahge in worker power in labor markets. Simply, workers with power can demand higher wages and better working conditions, especially if they make that demand collectively through a union.
I also talked about the state of the labor movement. My bottom line: unions are doing fine, but they need to do more. I focused particularly on membership growth and where the movement stands in its efforts to organize. I recommend Chris Bohner's recent post on the Power At Work Blog entitled "Cash and Clout: Analyzing Individual Unions' Membership Numbers and Finances" for a very deep dive into that topic.
Finally, and perhaps inevitably, we discussed the Federal Reserve and interest rates. The most important part of that discussion was my Passover-related reference to the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation "target." See if you can catch it.
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