Lifestyle
More paid vacation didn't fix America's day-off problem
Nikki Roberts
Economy
Economic coverage written from the employee and employer perspective at once. Topics include wage growth, hiring and layoff data, labor supply in particular trades, and household costs that determine whether workers can afford to move jobs. Each piece connects a national number to a decision being made inside an ordinary company.
Employment data, wage growth and household costs read for what they mean inside a company: hiring plans, raises and who can afford to quit.
Economy
The jobs number you react to isn't the one that counts
The monthly payroll print is a sample-based estimate with a forecast bolted on. Here's what the birth-death model does, when the benchmark fixes it, and how big a normal correction looks.
Lena Fischer
Economy
The savings rate fell, debt rose, and the economy shrugged — so far
Households spent down pandemic savings and borrowed to keep pace. The uncomfortable question is what happens when the buffer runs out.
Lena Fischer
Economy
The construction worker shortage became the infrastructure bottleneck
Trillion-dollar industrial and infrastructure programs are colliding with a craft-labor supply two decades in the making — and wages tell the story faster than the payroll data.
Lena Fischer
Economy
Why economists worship a boring weekly number
Initial unemployment claims is the fastest, cleanest recession signal in the economic data — if you know what it's actually measuring.
Amara Okonkwo