I appeared on Bloomberg's Balance of Power with Annmarie Hordern and Joe Mathieu on Friday, November 3 to discuss the October jobs, unemployment, and wages report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As our panelists discussed on this blog's Workers by the Numbers blogcast, the report showed moderate and sustainable jobs and wages growth.
Annmarie, Joe, and I also discussed the fact that unions' substantial strike wave is showing up in the BLS jobs report. The report noted that the manufacturing sector appeared to have lost 33,000 jobs, but also acknowledged that's a consequence of the UAW strike. Now that the strike has been won by the UAW, those jobs will "return." Another 44,000 jobs have been temporarily "lost" in the movie and television industry because of the SAG-AFTRA strike.
Finally, I made some bold predictions during this appearance about job creation and wage growth over the next several months. Watch the video to learn more about those predictions. My bottom line: the labor market is not giving any indications that we are headed for a recession. To the contrary, we seem to be in the midst of a soft landing.
Watch the full video here: