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Discussion Paper
Was the 2021-22 Rise in Inflation Equitable?
In our previous post, we discussed how the labor market recovery—the “maximum employment” half of the Federal Reserve System’s dual mandate—featured not only a return of overall employment rates to pre-pandemic levels, but also a narrowing of racial and ethnic gaps in employment rates. In this post, we take up the second half of the dual mandate—price stability—and discuss heterogeneity in inflation rates faced by different demographic groups during the rise in inflation in2021-22. We find that, in contrast to inequalities in employment rates, disparities in inflation rates have ...
What Does the Beveridge Curve Tell Us about the Labor Market Recovery?
Examining the relationship between the jobless rate and the job vacancy rate reveals recent changes in the job matching process between U.S. employers and workers.
Is the Labor Market as Tight as It Seems?
Accounting for employed workers who left for new jobs suggests that the labor market is not as tight as the conventional measure would imply.
Journal Article
The Allocation of Immigrant Talent in the United States
Immigrants account for close to 20% of the U.S. labor force, but they often do not have an easy time navigating U.S. labor markets.
The Allocation of Immigrant Talent across Countries: Employment Gaps
A cross-country analysis found immigrants were more likely than natives to work in fields like food service and less likely to be in fields like engineering.
Journal Article
President's Message: A Shift in the Inflation Winds?
At the Fed, a lot of work has gone into anchoring inflation expectations in recent decades. As a result, our economy has seen, from the early 1980s until last year, an era of remarkably low and stable inflation — sometimes called "the Great Moderation."
Journal Article
Research Spotlight: Measuring Employers’ Market Power
How competitive is the U.S. labor market? Is it highly competitive with few to no distortions, or do a few firms hold dominant market power? Answering this question quantitatively is helpful for understanding how wages are affected by labor market power, and thus for understanding how workers will be affected by labor policy choices.
Briefing
Changing Recruiting Practices and Methods in the Tight Labor Market
The unusually tight labor market has generated a wide range of challenges for employers attempting to hire workers. A survey conducted jointly by the Richmond Fed and the Richmond Society for Human Resources Management in June 2022 continues our series on recruiting methods and practices. There is little doubt that recruiting effort for each open position has intensified in the last year, and firms have had to engage new and different techniques to attract candidates and fill open positions.
Discussion Paper
Lagging Labor Force Participation in Maryland and Virginia
By July 2022, the U.S. had officially regained the jobs lost in the pandemic, the unemployment rate matched its pre-pandemic low, and the size of the labor force (the sum of employed and unemployed looking for work) was almost back to its pre-pandemic level. The same was true for many states in the Fifth District. Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia had recovered nearly all the jobs lost in February and March of 2020, while North and South Carolina had more than fully recovered. Unemployment rates were at or below pre-pandemic rates across much of the Fifth District as well.
Discussion Paper
How Have Racial and Ethnic Earnings Gaps Changed after COVID-19?
Racial and ethnic earnings disparities have been salient features of the U.S. economy for decades. Between the pandemic-driven recession in 2020 and the rising inflation since 2021, workers’ real and nominal earnings have seen rapid change. To get a sense of how recent economic conditions have affected earnings disparities, we examine real and nominal weekly earnings trends for Asian, Black, Hispanic, and white workers. We find that average real weekly earnings have been declining in the past year, but less so for Black and Hispanic workers than for white and Asian workers. Black and ...