Showing all posts tagged #jgp:


US Politics: heating up

Posted on September 10th, 2015

  • Several recent developments (e.g., Iran deal, early start of the election cycle) have upset rank-and-file Republicans -- there's now an attempt (or threat) of removing Boehner as Speaker.
  • Republicans need about 35 votes to do that; some political analysts think they might have 15-25.
  • Another consequence of the recent rebellion is a revival of Tea Party.
  • Potential (negative) consequences are:
    • The likelihood of a government shutdown increases; deadline is the end of September.
    • Concerns about the debt limit increase (most likely deadline by late November / early December).
    • A short-term temporary extension of government funding would risk combining both government shutdown and debt ceiling debate to late November -- resembling the 2013 fiasco.

US - Employer costs for wages and salaries (2Q15)

Posted on September 9th, 2015

O BLS divulga uma pesquisa sobre os custos (wages, benefits) para o empregador, chamada ECEC (Employment Cost for Employee Compensation), que utiliza a mesma base da dados do ECI (Employment Cost Index) - a National Compensation Survey.

A principal diferença entre o ECI e o ECEC é que o ECI usa peso fixo para o emprego, de modo que o ECI mede a evolução dos salários sob a ótica do empregado (abstraindo das mudanças na composição do emprego), enquanto que o ECEC mede sob a ótica do custo para o empregador.

Os gráficos abaixo mostram que em ambas as métricas (ECI e ECEC) o primeiro trimestre pareceu excessivamente elevado e houve um arrefecimento no 2Q -- porém o ECEC sugere que houve de fato uma mudança no patamar de salários e total compensation.


Total compensation vs wages




Wages - incluindo o AHE da pesquisa do payroll





JOLTS - chartpack (Jul-15): robust labor market

Posted on September 9th, 2015


There are 5.7 million job openings in the US...


...and 8.0 million unemployed

Quits ratio is high in absolute level and in relation to layoffs


No wonder some companies are having hard time finding people to work...

...despite paying higher wages and planning to continue to increase wages

Current job openings rate was, in the past, compatible with much lower unemployment rates...

...but the bulk of the difference is long-term unemployment; short term unemployment rate is close to the previous cycle 2007 low; interestingly short-term unemployment rate seems to have stalled at current low levels.





Paulo Gustavo Grahl, CFA

Random comments on macro data. Views are my own. Except when they aren't.