Economic Research and Data
Features
- Gender Differences in Employment Statistics
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- One key measure of the condition of an economy’s labor market is the unemployment rate. At 5.0 percent, some see recent unemployment data as further evidence of an economy in distress. The unemployment rate has inched slightly higher in the past few months (4.9 percent in January to 5.0 percent in April) and over the course of the past year (it was 4.5 percent last April). Historically, though, the rate is actually somewhat low. Read more
- Bifurcation?
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- The International Monetary Fund lowered its projections for world economic growth. No surprise there! But the report also suggested that the traditional correlation between growth in advanced-developed countries and growth in developing countries was weakening. Global trade gains and macroeconomic policy improvements have reduced—but not eliminated—the developing countries’ dependency on the developed world. Now that’s interesting! Read more
- The Employment Situation
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- The April Employment Report came in better than anticipated, with a total loss of just 20,000 nonfarm jobs from payrolls. Revisions to February and March numbers increased the losses in those months by just 8,000. The unemployment rate edged slightly lower, from 5.1 percent to 5.0 percent over the month. Read more
