Reuters
Pandemic may have worsened trends towards sluggish U.S. labor supply
U.S. labor markets are even more constrained than the current 3.5% unemployment rate indicates, according to new economic research that argues declines in the number of hours employees want to work were reinforced by the pandemic and are set to continue. The research, released on Friday at the Kansas City Federal Reserve’s annual Jackson Hole research symposium in Wyoming and published separately, shifts the focus from how many people are working, to how many hours they are putting in – or want to. In economically more developed nations, the trend on that front has been falling for decades, according to research presented at the symposium and conducted by Goethe University Frankfurt’s Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln, Vanderbilt University’s Adam Blandin and the St. Louis Fed’s Alexander Bick.
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