Source: Bloomberg
Author: Rich Miller
Americans have shortened their working hours than before the epidemic, which is a good thing for many people, but it is another thing in the eyes of the Fed with anti -inflation as its own responsibility.
According to a new study conducted by former US Labor Statistics Director Katharine Abraham and her colleague of Maryland University, Lea Rendell, in the past three years, the average weekly working length of Americans has reduced the length of more than half an hour, which caused some Americans toIt can follow the European -style lifestyle and use more time for leisure and other activities.
But according to the above -mentioned research report, shortening working hours also means a shortage of labor, equivalent to 2.4 million people.This exacerbates the pressure on the employment market faced by the Federal Reserve. In order to control the inflation rate at the target level, Powell and his colleagues want to cool down the job market.
Stephanie Aaronson, senior deputy director of the Federal Reserve Research and Statistics Department, stated at a meeting of the research conclusion last week.The weekly work length is to explain "a very important part of why labor supply is so low."
Yongseok Shin, a professor at the University of Washington University in San Louis, emphasized at a meeting at the Brukins Society that three types of people have reduced their working lengths, which are young men who have been educated and high -income (a weekly working hours are reduced by 1.5 hours), and the weekly work time (1.5 hours per week), and 1.5 hours of working hours), and 1.5 hours per week)."Working crazy" (weekly working hours from 55 hours in 2019 to 52 hours).
People who can implement long -range or mixed office models are more inclined to shorten their working hours.Shin explained that "No one will notice that you're getting off work a little early on Friday."
Non -agricultural employment data
The Fed will receive the latest non -agricultural employment data report on Friday. According to Bloomberg News Agency's investigation of economists, the number of new non -agricultural employment people in the number of non -agricultural employment was 220,000 last month, which was lower than 311,000 in February.The unemployment rate is expected to be flat at 3.6%.
According to the employment data released by the Adp Research Institute, the new posts in the United States in March were lower than expected, but this overall data covered the industry's segmentation differences.In fact, the number of employment in the industry in leisure and entertainment, trade and construction has increased, and employment in the financial industry has decreased.
When the inflation rate began to rise sharply in 2021, Powell had expected the increase in employment to help curb the increase in salary and prevent the labor market from overheating.However, this situation has not happened, and some academic people try to find out the medium reasons.
Abraham and Rendell and some Federal Reserve officials recently showed that the above -mentioned employment gap should not be so unexpected.The US labor participation rate dropped from 63.3%before the epidemic to 62.5%. Most of the reasons were the trend that had occurred before the epidemic, such as aging population.
A small part of the decline in labor participation rates is due to the crown disease epidemic itself, some are afraid of infection, and some are sequelae of crown disease.But Abraham and Rendell said that the more confusing is that the working hours are reduced, which has an important impact on labor supply.
They found that less than 10%of the reduced working hours can be attributed to the sequelae of crown disease.Other reasons are still unknown, but they speculate that many Americans may re -examine the balance of work and life.
