A central tenet of the $1.8tr American Families Plan is the low labour market participation rate in the US. The Biden Administration wants to boost the female participation rate, in part to help raise productivity, but also to address what it sees as ‘profound’ inequality in the labour market.
President Biden will be encouraged by the recent labour market data. On April 23rd, US job postings on Indeed.com were 22.4% above the pre-pandemic baseline (February 1st, 2020).
This provides a good indication of where job openings are heading. On February 26th, job postings on Indeed.com were 5.7% above their pre-pandemic baseline.
This broadly matched the increase in job openings (+6.5% y/y, non-seasonally adjusted data) in the JOLTS report for February 2021. Total job openings in the private sector were up more (+10.1% y/y).
The JOLTS report should eventually catch up with Indeed.com when the data for March and April are released.
Indeed.com is supported by the Conference Board’s ‘jobs gap’ indicator – ‘jobs plentiful’ minus ‘jobs hard to get’ – which jumped in April.
Summary
- Signs of a tight labour market in the US
- Wage pressures may intensify
- Pressure to improve worker conditions too
