Guy Berger @EconBerger Twitter profile

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 days

My recap of April's jobs report - we've been spoiled, jobs day junkies!

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

Still my favorite econ paper title

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

With all due respect to the tweeter below - the share of Americans of prime working age who are working (80.0%) is quite a bit over the average for the last quarter-century (78.4%). Americans are working harder than normal right now.

Jamie Little

@JamieLittleTV

2 years

As a small business owner, I can attest. This has been truth for the past year and it isn’t getting better.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

4 years

This could have been us, too 🙁

Bleacher Report

@BleacherReport

4 years

New Zealand welcomed back sports with fans. The country hasn't had any new COVID-19 cases in three weeks. (via @southernscoop )

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@RexKwonDo92 Look on the bright side, the odds that Winds of Winter gets published by July 6011 just went up

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

There's an article floating around declaring that Americans are a "nation of quitters" and asking "does anyone want to work anymore?" This kind of rhetoric is very disconnected from reality. The share of prime-working-age Americans with a job is well above its 25 yr average.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

@jenniferdoleac Leaving aside what you will/won’t do, this doesn’t express a lot of empathy for your RAs :(

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

11 months

Since Friday is the next BLS jobs report, your periodic reminder that “Americans don’t want to work” is total nonsense. The share of prime working age Americans with a job was 80.8% in April, the highest since 2001 and well above the 25-year average.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

Historians of economic thought will one day publish a journal article about this tweet

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

7 months

Spicy take - at least over the next decade, medications like wegovy/ozempic will have a bigger impact on our economy than generative AI

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

@rachdele It’s an ad for Chanel bone broth

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

Lots of ink spilled about today's jobs report, but this is still the big picture: this current recovery, while nowhere near complete is moving much faster than the prior one. Fiscal and monetary stimulus work. Policymakers, please don't step on the brakes!!!!

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

Big problem with the very popular "Great Resignation" term: it's misleading a lot of people about what is actually happening in the US. Quits are definitely extremely elevated, but so are hires. Folks aren't resigning from the workforce, they're resigning to take better jobs!

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

1/ @LinkedIn Hiring Rate update: February was unfortunately a month of bad news: The US LHR was down 6.5% M/M seasonally adjusted, the biggest 1 month decline since 2020. Hiring is now down 30.8% from April 2022 (when declines began), and 27.9% Y/Y.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

Minimum wage debates are maybe THE most obvious example of why Econ 101 pedagogy is problematic

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@Birdyword I discovered one of my all-time faves via a 2008 Charlemagne column

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

Economist: This common sense thing that you believe is true, is actually false. Non-Economist: Really? Economist: Uhhhh… no. It’s actually true.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

1/ For a long time, I've argued that the JOLTS data on job openings should be "taken seriously, not literally" - with job openings exaggerating the degree of tightness in the labor market. So I'm very excited to share evidence from @LinkedIn data on this point…

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 month

What a beautiful BLS jobs report. Let's jump into the charts. 1/ Nonfarm payroll employment continues to come in very strong. Deceleration stopped a long time ago.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

Since we're 6 days away from the next @BLS_gov employment report, a quick reminder re "nobody wants to work anymore" that the share of prime-working-age Americans with a job is well above the 25-year average and the highest since 2001.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

1/ I'm very excited about @LinkedIn 's first ever Economic Outlook letter; the first edition was authored by my colleague, @RandGhayad . A quick thread on some of the contents:

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

Chart Thread 1/ Let's start with the very good news: the share of prime working age Americans with a job hit a new post-2001 high, at 80.8%. Getting closer to the all time high (81.9%), reached in April 2000.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

5 months

An income-based explanation for "vibecession": 1) Even though we haven't had an actual recession over the past 2 years, inflation-adjusted personal income per capita (blue) have behaved in a recessionary way. 2) That's true even though "the economy is good" (orange)

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

4 months

Some professional news! I've joined the Burning Glass Institute as Director of Economic Research.

The Burning Glass Institute

www.burningglassinstitute.org

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

@MattGlassman312 One of the nice things about being a Gen X music snob is not experiencing that as a trauma and instead thinking “you know, despite being a manufactured band, the Monkees had some great songs”

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

8 months

"̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶m̶o̶r̶e̶"̶ On the eve of the August BLS jobs report, the share of prime working age Americans with a job is the highest it's been in 22 years and only 1 percentage point away from the all time record.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

💸💸💸 Whenever I hear “we had too much stimulus” or “we should have done hypothetical superior legislation”, I reflect on this: in just 1.5 years we put ourselves in the same position that took 8.5 years of recession & recovery last cycle 👇

Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

Lots of ink spilled about today's jobs report, but this is still the big picture: this current recovery, while nowhere near complete is moving much faster than the prior one. Fiscal and monetary stimulus work. Policymakers, please don't step on the brakes!!!!

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

Maybe that’s a boring reason for why it’s hard to find people who want to work - an unusually high number of the people who want to work already have a job!

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

8 months

My take on the U-1 spike: 1/ I've seen various tweets floating around re U-1, an alternate measure of US unemployment which measures people unemployed >15 weeks as a % of the labor force. The spike is very small so far, but unusual outside of early recession.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

6 months

One thing that’s surprised me over the years is how much we worry about technology-induced unemployment when it’s clearly a tiny problem compared to bad-macroeconomic-policy-induced unemployment:

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

17 days

The gap in pay between people with grad/professional degrees and those with only BAs is now the narrowest on record. If you're wondering why we're hearing about "vibecession" despite a strong labor mkt, it's probably that the former group is overrepresented in the discourse.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

8 months

Our full @LinkedIn Workforce Report comes out next week, but here's what our data says happened in August: 1/ US hiring fell by 3.6% M/M (SA). We’d seen signs of stabilization in the spring, but over the past 3 months this metric has resumed moving in a negative direction.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@conorsen I miss not having to rely on a car - convenient, dense-network public transit is more important to me than good restaurants

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

9 months

A quick recap of @LinkedIn data for July: 1/ The US LinkedIn Hiring Rate dipped 3.3% M/M. This surprised me - we'd seen a stabilization in the spring after a long uninterrupted streak of declines. I'm hoping July is just a blip and we'll get renewed signs of stabilization in Aug

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

4 months

JOLTS charts: 1/ I was wrong about stabilization in November. Hiring rate 3.5%, the lowest since March 2020. Well below what you'd expect given an unemployment rate below 4%. Hopefully just a blip!

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

7 months

All good things... TL;DR: I'm leaving @LinkedIn ! Will take some time off and then figure out what's next. :) Longer version below...

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

6 years

There’s an odd, evidence-free claim that the reason US wage growth is so slow is that employers are piling on the perks. NOT TRUE! Employer benefit costs are growing at the same anemic pace as wages.

Guy Berger

@EconBerger

6 years

@AnnalynKurtz @BankofAmerica This analysis is misleading and I'm sad to see it gain currency. Benefit costs are growing at exactly the same pace as wages & salaries. Once you take a holistic view of worker compensation that includes non-wage benefits... compensation growth still looks historically very low

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

1/ I really hate the term "quiet quitting" and wish it would go away: a) It's loaded, anti-worker language b) There is no evidence that the behavior it describes has increased in prevalence in the past year

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

On parental leave so no deep thoughts from me today, but my bottom line: the current recovery is well ahead of the prior one, and moving much faster. The share of prime working age Americans with a job is at the same level as in the first half of 2015.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

8 months

JOLTS Thread: 1/ This, to me, is the essential feature of "near-immaculate" labor market cooling since late 2021: driven by falling hiring, not by rising layoffs. If anything, in recent months layoffs have declined in importance even as hiring continued to moderate.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

I need to mute “Inflation is not an increase in prices, it’s an increase in the money supply”

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

5 months

JOLTS Thread: 1/ Hires have not fallen since the spring. Hopefully a sign of stabilization? They're currently consistent with an unemployment rate just north of 4.5%.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

6 years

Economists and other social scientists - we are accepting proposals for research using LinkedIn data!!!

LinkedIn Engineering

@LinkedInEng

6 years

Check out the latest updates from the Economic Graph Research Program, where we're partnering with academic researchers to provide insights into the global economy:

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

5 months

CHARTS CHARTS CHARTS 1/ First off, the unemployment rate falls back to 3.7%, lowest in four months. Will surely reduce recession worries at least a little.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

Chart thread! 1/ The payroll number will grab everyone's attention, but let's start with: PRIME AGE EMPLOYMENT POPULATION RATIO FULLY BACK TO PRE-PANDEMIC LEVELS!!!

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@TheStalwart I’d rather have 2 million Bitcoin than 1 million Bitcoin

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@jdcmedlock Before I answer, please clarify if you’re cooking food or laying a siege to a castle

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

@ErikVoorhees As a matter of simple accounting, it's impossible to have "net producers" without also having "net consumers"

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

10 months

June @Linkedin Hiring Rate update: Our next Workforce Report will be published in 1 week, but we're releasing a few highlights as a sneak peak. 1/ US hiring has stabilized in the near term, as employers take stock of where the economy is headed.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 month

A strand of labor market doomerism has gotten hung up on the recent increase in part time workers This erroneously conflates 2 types of part timers: "for economic reasons" & "for non-econ reasons" Only the former signifies a weak labor market; the latter often does the opposite

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 months

Jobs day thread: 1/ Big downward revisions to Dec & Jan (-167K), but the Feb number was quite strong (+290K). The last three months are averaging 265K, the highest since June 2023.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

10 months

Jobs Day Thread! Let's start with the basic stuff... 1/ Some overheated worries about the unemployment rate last month. It came back down in June, to 3.6%. Aside from wiggles it hasn't really budged since last spring. Very low.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

If the Fed really wants to surprise/shock markets they should hike by 57 basis points instead of 75

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

A quick reminder whenever you hear "Americans don't want to work anymore" - the share of prime working age Americans with a job in February 2023 matched its highest level since 2001, and was well above the quarter-century average.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@AaronRHanlon This just isn’t true. America is strongly liked in the UK. Positive opinion about the US in the UK outnumbers negative by about 2 to 1

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

@Noahpinion Aren’t you understating the S&P’s outperformance - total return is higher than the increase in prices because of dividends

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

Update on the @LinkedIn Hiring Rate: 1/ Hiring declined again in March, by 0.6% M/M. This was the smallest monthly decrease since hiring started falling in the spring of 2022.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

20 days

imho it's pretty simple: (1) immigration (2) growth-friendly macroeconomic policy

Erik Brynjolfsson

@erikbryn

20 days

What's the secret to the success of the US economy recently?

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@besttrousers Do you mean to tell me that a single Tylenol pill won’t prevent all future headaches?!?!?!??!????!? A medical travesty

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 months

The Great Stay is ongoing: very low hiring, somewhat low quits, very low layoffs. Quite different than last cycle. 1/ Hires are consistent with an unemployment rate around 5.5%.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

JOLTS Thread: 1/ Layoffs are still quite low in the US by historical standards, but they’re clearly on the rise. Not good, Bob.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 month

@christaylor_nyc Fwiw, McCartney is right! It’s a great version. She should cover more of his songs - a Beyoncé Sings McCartney album would be amazing.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 months

@besttrousers Some of these talking points were true to some degree in the 2010s (especially early in the decade) and they've survived as zombies long past their accuracy expiration date

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

7 months

Jobs chart thread! 1/ First off, a very strong establishment survey. NFP was the strongest (+336K) since January, and robust upward revisions (+119K). Probably just a blip in a gradual downward trend, though always worth considering the possibility of stabilization.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

Economists trying to prove the “what caused inflation?” corollary before proving the “metaphysically, what is a cause?” theorem

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@jenniferdoleac Respectfully disagree! "Politics" is a constraint just like "resources" or "technology". I think we'd all agree that optimization without taking into account relevant constraints is leaving a lot of insight on the table.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

6 months

JOLTS Charts: 1/ The hire rate has been stable for the last 3 months, at 3.7%. Unlike 2 years ago, when hires were above what you'd expect given the unemployment rate, they are now below it - a "Great Stay" instead of a "Great Resignation.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

4 months

With all due respect to Paul who is obviously a far more accomplished economist than me - the labor market cooled substantially over the past two years. Very apparent in hiring, quits, wage growth… not in unemployment.

Paul Krugman

@paulkrugman

5 months

Yes, the Fed raised rates, but no sign of the mechanism (unemployment!) by which rate hikes are supposed to reduce inflation. The best case for the Fed is that it prevented possible overheating, which might have kept inflation high. 2/

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

8 months

BLS jobs day Chart Thread! 1/ Solid job gains in August (+187K), but yet again large-ish negative revisions to the prior months (-110K). Over the last 3 months, nonfarm payrolls growing at below the pre-COVID pace (+150K vs ~200K).

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

13 days

The new ban on non-compete agreements is a wonderful pro-worker policy. Thank you @FTC !

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 months

Someone please write an article with the title: “Italy’s Economic Boom: Lessons for the Rest of Europe”

Joey Politano 🏳️‍🌈

@JosephPolitano

3 months

Here's each G7 country's cumulative increase in GDP per-capita, compared to just before the pandemic: 🇺🇸 +7.2% 🇮🇹 +4.3% (thru Q3) 🇯🇵 +1.8% 🇫🇷 -0.0% (thru Q3) 🇩🇪 -1.1% (thru Q3) 🇬🇧 -1.7% 🇨🇦 -2.0% (thru Q3)

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

@Brian_Riedl I would think that even within-party-affiliation there is substantial difference between on-Twitter and real life demographics

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

I’ve finally made it! Agree w/the rating, my kid’s art finally getting the public credit it deserves.

Room Rater

@ratemyskyperoom

2 years

Economist setup. Not a leading indicator. Can offer 5/10 but only because of the kids’ art. @EconBerger

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

10 months

Like a zombie that keeps coming back, you can still find folks saying "Americans don't want to work anymore". And like a hero fighting zombies, the US economy keeps fighting back relentlessly, month after month, with data disproving that claim.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 months

Productivity 1/ Three consecutive quarters of excellent productivity growth! Still far too early to know if we're in a genuine productivity boom (a la 1945-70 and 1995-2004), but evidence is pretty solid that we're out of the extreme 2010-17 slump and at worst back to "meh".

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

1/ One worrying thing about the US labor market: unemployment due to permanent layoff is rising. Its share of total unemployment is at the highest level since 2021. So while unemployment remains exceptionally low by historical standards, the mix is getting worse.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

5 months

The super-majority erroneously forecasting recession was relying on mainstream "understanding" of how the economy works. The forecast was bad because the "understanding" was incorrect, not because the inference from that "understanding" was flawed

James Medlock

@jdcmedlock

5 months

Last year 85% of economists polled thought we’d be in a recession by now

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

7 months

@ChadNotChud Didn’t stop Menes from becoming an ex-Pharaoh

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 month

Twitter’s feedback to BLS on CPI weights: Replace the existing system with an index based on just two items. Bananas, weight 0%. Fast food delivered to your door, 100%.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 months

My boring take is: 1) if there's no recession & inflation the rest of the year looks like Jan+Feb, we're not getting any rate cuts this year 2) strongly-held inferences about inflation during the rest of the year based on Jan+Feb data are not warranted

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 months

It's weird that "it's expensive to order food for delivery to my home" became such a central plank of online econ doomerism

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

6 months

Prime working age employment in the US is only 1.1 percentage points away from the all-time record attained in April 2000. No reason we can't get there... and then keep going.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

4 months

Chart thread: 1/ NFP solid in December (+216K), but yet again, we got negative revisions to prior months. The series now shows some additional, modest drift down since the summer.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

5 months

2/ Layoffs are still incredibly low - lower than the pre-pandemic minimum! No signs of deterioration along this front.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

4 months

And I have all 3 seats to myself. Very auspicious at the start of an easing cycle

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

7 months

Belated JOLTS commentary - 1/ In a flip of "The Great Resignation" of two years ago, hires are now *below* where you would expect given the unemployment rate. In the 2010s we experienced hiring rates of 3.7% when the unemployment rate was above 4%.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

"Quiet quitting" isn't a thing

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

JOLTS thread: 1/ First, a quick reminder that falling hires have been the biggest driver of the moderation in net employment growth over the past 12-15 months, not rising layoffs.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

5 months

Some charts on US household sentiment, all from the Fed's SHED survey: 1/ Americans are way more pessimistic about the economy than about their financial well-being, and that gap has gotten wider. BUT... their sentiment on financial well-being is worse than it was in 2017-19

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 years

Policy idea: rebrand unemployment insurance as “stimulus checks”

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

Claims: 1/ Continuing claims just grinding up at a pretty steady pace. A bad sign - the labor market is having increasing trouble absorbing folks who are laid off, out of unemployment.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

3 months

JOLTS: The "Great Stay" continued in December. 1/ Hires rebound a little bit. Still, fewer people are starting new jobs than we would expect given the current unemployment rate - in the past cycle, would have been consistent with a UR above 5%.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

1/ I’m less concerned about the Q2 decline in GDP than about the upward creep in claims. We weren't in a recession in H1, and probably aren't in a recession right now, but I'm worried about Q3 & Q4. Unemployment is going up. If this continues, the BLS UR measure will move up too.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

I wish it went without saying, but a quick reminder that the reason a lot of Americans are quitting their old jobs is that they are starting new, better ones.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

1 year

@TheStalwart Can you imagine the massive productivity gains that will be unleashed by AI reproducing already-widely-held mostly-incorrect human opinions?

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

7 months

@mattyglesias To be fair and balanced you must also share how the medications answer this question

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 months

A very good job market for people who already have jobs, a not so great job market for people who are looking for jobs.

Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 months

The Great Stay is ongoing: very low hiring, somewhat low quits, very low layoffs. Quite different than last cycle. 1/ Hires are consistent with an unemployment rate around 5.5%.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

2 years

@jenniferdoleac For that same reason, I think it's odd to view "don't care about politics" as something worth celebrating, any more than "don't care about resource endowments" or "don't care about market imperfections" or "don't care about technology

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

11 months

Update on @LinkedIn Hiring Rate for May: 1/ After a year of big declines, we've seen a small uptick in US hiring. It increased by 3.5% M/M (SA) in May. It's still down 21.8% Y/Y.

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

4 months

Imho the counter-question to “why cut rates if the economy is doing well” is “why keep rates higher than they need to be to keep inflation at target” Just because the economy is doing well doesn’t mean it can’t do BETTER

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Guy Berger

@EconBerger

8 days

Nostalgia for the Roman Empire is weird