Search Results
Discussion Paper
Are Signs of Labor Market Normalization Reflected in Wage Growth?
There have been two salient features of the U.S. economy in the past two years: a tight labor market and high inflation. In the Richmond Fed business surveys, the tight labor market has manifested in a high employment index combined with a low availability of skills index; high inflation has corresponded with extreme elevation in our survey's measures of growth in prices paid and prices received. Recently, all of these survey measures have either reached or made notable progress toward reaching more historically normal levels. It is hard to imagine, however, a rebalanced labor market or ...
Journal Article
District Digest: Community Colleges as Anchor Institutions in Rural Areas
The Fifth Federal Reserve District — comprising Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, most of West Virginia, and Washington, D.C. — is home to 122 public two-year institutions that have a wide range of both traditional academic and technical programs. More than half of these community colleges are located in rural counties. The 66 rural community colleges, like the private and public four-year institutions of higher education in rural areas, play an anchor institution role in their communities. But this role is not always accounted for in the formulas that federal, state, ...
Journal Article
State Labor Markets: What Can Data Tell (or Not Tell) Us?
Journal Article
The Urban Core in the Tale of Three Cities
The Fifth District economy ? like the U.S. economy ? is increasingly driven by urban areas. In 2016, over 90 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) was attributable to metropolitan statistical areas, or MSAs, while they occupied just under 50 percent of the nation's land mass. This is not a new phenomenon, but it remains an important one.
Discussion Paper
Automation and AI: What Does Adoption Look Like for Fifth District Businesses?
Technological developments shift the kinds of skills needed in the labor force. From innovations in agriculture to electricity to the personal computer to the internet, technology has shaped the way we work and the types of workers we need to produce the goods and provide the services that consumers demand. The tight labor market of the last few years has provided employers with further incentive to find ways to use automation to increase the productivity of existing workers and even reduce the need to hire more. The opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative AI, ...
Journal Article
A regional look at the role of house prices and labor market conditions in mortgage default
A linear fixed effects statistical model is used to study variations in foreclosure rates across metropolitan statistical areas in the Fifth Federal Reserve District. We find that variations in local labor market conditions and house prices do a remarkable job of capturing variation in foreclosure rates. We study the regional variation in foreclosure rates in more detail by examining two localities in our district: Prince William County, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina. Finally, the model is used to provide forecasts of foreclosure rates conditioned on possible paths of labor market ...
Journal Article
State and Metro Data, 3Q:14
Briefing
Are Firms Using Remote Work to Recruit and Retain Workers?
A Richmond Fed survey of employers in the Fifth District reveals that many firms — especially larger ones — are offering hybrid and remote work options to recruit and retain employees. Those same firms have expanded the geographic reach of their recruiting efforts. Expectations about the future direction of remote work differ a lot across sectors and employers.
Discussion Paper
The Devastation of Hurricane Helene: The Fifth District
The impact of Hurricane Helene is still reverberating across the Southeast with each day bringing new revelations of the catastrophic damage to communities in the Fifth District. After making landfall on Sept. 26 in Florida, the storm moved inland, bringing wind gusts and historic levels of rainfall that destroyed homes, businesses, landscapes, and critical infrastructure, and left some areas of our district unrecognizable. The loss of life — more than 230 people as of the writing of this post — makes Hurricane Helene the deadliest mainland hurricane in the United States since Hurricane ...