Let the good times roll! 223,000 new jobs in US in February

[Colonâ„¢]

Oh my god...

[Vanguard]

1. The changes in the participation rate basically indicate that actual unemployment is much higher than the official number. It shows that there are many more people in the economy who want jobs than are counted by the statistic. And what do you call the phenomenon when there are people in the economy who want jobs? Well, I call it "unemployment".

2. Since wages have failed to keep place with inflation, increased participation seems to indicate that price inflation is begining to force people to take jobs they otherwise would not. This is just conjecture of course: we don't know what is going through their minds. But otherwise why would people take jobs for less money? (there are plenty of possible reasons, of course. But none of them indicate "good times")

3. Wages failed to keep pace with inflation. That is bad times rolling, not good. Well, assuming you work for wages that is.

4. Fundamentally it looks like the US is at the begining of a major inflationary cycle. Unless the price of oil drops considerably, the Fed will be forced to hike interest rates, which will throw the US into actual recession (instead of recession merely for workers).

[Lawrence of Arabia]

3. but remember that wages are sticky, in the sense that once a contract is signed (say a one or two year contract) you will not get a raise even if the company is doing better since you signed a contract.