YouSaid · the spoken record

Joelle Gamble

lines on the record: 35
first: 2022-08-29
most recent: 2022-08-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Biggest question is always, what's the trend line going to be? And excuse this very wonky answer, but I love three-month averages for this reason. So one I think is important to watch to see if this continues or if this was a temporary uptick because prior to July, you know, we were seeing slightly lower figures that were trending lower than they were before. So that's out the gate. First reaction is, is this going to stick? Is this the start of a new trend? That doesn't seem likely to me, but we will see very, very soon. And then the second thing is, you know, to a question you asked earlier, it's a sign that Americans do want to work. It seems like, you know, every time we have a recovery, the employer side story kind of dominates the headlines, which is the idea that Americans don't want to work, but they want good quality jobs in sectors where they're not at risk of contracting a deadly virus. They want to make enough money to pay the bill, especially in an environment where inflation”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But born workers in the US also have choice. And so we are seeing when there is opportunities for workers to have choice, they also will choose better quality jobs. So I think that that's important on the solutions front. I think obviously the policies of the last administration played a big role. And frankly, the pandemic hampered the federal government's ability to process legal immigrants into the US. And so from at least where I sit from what I've seen, the administration is doing all it can to kind of fix a lot of those challenges, including just the undermining of our ability to actually make the immigration system work for people who are doing their best to navigate it.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the effects of immigration are definitely showing up in the labor market data today. There are individuals who've measured this. I wish I could remember the papers off the top, but of my head, but the gaps can be fairly significant. Hundreds of thousands, I think even there was an estimate that was showing last year that there were 2 million missing immigrants in the U.S. economy. Obviously, not all those immigrants would be participating in the labor market, but a sizable share would. And so that does affect overall supply of labor. But we're actually also seeing that even for workers who are born outside of the US who are working in the US today, they are also taking advantage of this bargaining power and are switching to sectors that may be higher quality, which I thought was interesting because often be thought as we'll just bring in a bunch of immigrants, they'll flood the labor market and take all these terrible jobs.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that's one thing, but at the same time, if you have an urgent need to feed your family, you know, pay your bills, I imagine even if your paycheck wasn't stretching as far, the choice is probably to try to earn a wage. There, of course, other reasons which labor force participation might be lower for some workers. Like I mentioned earlier, care, lack of access to opportunities or discrimination. The opiates has even played a big role in the declining rate of participation for white men. There are other bigger structural factors that play a role, but that individual decision feels like it leans more on the side of if there's a job on the table, I might take it than not.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's a really interesting question. My first thought was to look to frankly consumer expectations. For inflation, we just saw that there was a fairly big drop between June and July in the short and long run expectations because I imagined that that might give you a sign as to whether or not that's playing a big role in their decision making. But again, this is off the cuff hypothesis.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get a job in a sector that they could not work in before taking home a bigger paycheck that comes with strong worker protections and maybe retirement benefits, healthcare, all the things that a lot of workers need.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I frankly think about it as things that we should be doing no matter what, to be completely honest. We were talking about the labor force participation rate and increasing labor supply is important to the long-run growth of the U.S. economy, creating new high quality jobs here at home, including in manufacturing, which the Inflation Reduction Act would do, clean energy manufacturing in particular, is important for the growth of the economy. I mean, it also is important for bringing down the cost of energy, but it's also important for growing the economy because if we have a bigger pie and we grow that pie in a way that is shared so workers have more power so they get a bigger piece of that pie, that has the bonus of both growing your economy, increasing productivity, everyone benefits from higher living standards. And American workers have, again, like I was saying before, paychecks that stretch a little bit farther, or they get a chance.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A number of things. I'm like, oh, I'd love to talk about that. So, you know, we were talking earlier about real wage growth. And I think that the inflation reduction act is really important because we're seeing the impact of inflation on real wages and it highlights the broader importance of lowering the cost of living overall. Inflation reduction act is doing that by tackling some of the real cost of living challenges that Americans feel now, of course, especially at the pump or at the grocery store, but they're also longstanding challenges. So bringing down energy costs, healthcare costs, you know, the high costs for prescription drugs. Those are all things that workers have to pay for with the wages that they are earning. And so when I think about the Inflation Reduction Act and I think about improving the cost of living, I think about workers who are going to have paychecks that stretch a little farther than they did before.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Openings data is that it may also, and I think this is bearing out with data, it also might just reflect some shift in preferences too. So some of the highest job opening levels by sector are the service sector job openings. So retail trade, healthcare, food service and accommodations, especially food services and accommodations, which was kind of skyrocketed when the recovery began in part probably because there's a high exposure risk to COVID if you work those jobs and lower wages, though those wages are rising really fast. And so some of the openings data, again, I like to emphasize a sectoral differences because they tell you an additional story may also be influenced by where workers are trying to actually search for work and fill jobs, especially those lower skilled workers who may have slightly better opportunity in this tightly market.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that that's a very valid theory if the cost of job hostings is going down, especially due to technology like the ability to post online, then you would expect employers to go fishing a little bit more, even if they're not always interested in catching a fish. And so you might see slightly elevated job openings. I think as the Bureau of Labor Statistic defines it, they are running a survey by which they're actively asking employers, is this an opening that you were actively hiring for? Now, there's probably a lot of room for interpretation there, but by the Department of Labor standards, we are doing our best to try to measure job openings for which employers are trying to fill a job versus this kind of more passive approach to looking for workers that might happen if job openings are less costly. I think something else that's really interesting about the job”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are a few ways things can go, but it doesn't seem completely improbable in part because, frankly, as you all know, as observers of this debate as well, there's a lot of wonky signals out there in terms of what's going on in the macroeconomy. We saw three consecutive months of job openings decline without major movement and unemployment rate, which again, it's premature to say there we go, mission accomplished, but things could go a lot of different ways. We could see a vertical fallen job openings and things might work out. The beverage curve, which is what I'm referencing, unemployment rates to vacancy ratio, it could shift back to where it was in prior recoveries and that we might be in a different situation. I think this debate is really healthy. I think it's important. I don't pretend to have an opinion on it. I'm mostly focused on outcomes for workers here, but it does seem like it's really worthwhile to try to do all we can to make sure we get”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I first must start off with an awkward disclaimer, which is I have full respect as the administration does for the Fed's independence on these issues, so I will not comment on Fed policy. Okay. So I think a few things. One, I think this is why it's so important to see sustainable wage growth in the labor market, to see participation increase, and to see wage growth reflecting the values that workers bring to business. I want to see wage growth, of course. I want to see sustainable wage growth. I also am really fascinated by slash have been following this really important debate in macroeconomics. I'm not a macroeconomist, so I will fully, fully claim that I am just following it around how we might land softly, how we might actually achieve a soft landing here. And it really does seem like...”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It certainly makes sense on the surface, and I think it's part of what's enabling workers to have some choice in the labor market. They didn't have to rush back to a job that wasn't their ideal job. And so there's some increase in worker power that's happening there. I am on the surface at least skeptical of it being a long run challenge, in part because savings can run out, especially for workers who don't have a lot of wealth, which is frankly a lot of workers. And also in part because so much about our financial well-being as Americans is reliant on our job, not just the check paychecks we take home, but also things like health insurance and retirement benefits if we are fortunate enough to have a job where we have those. And so at a certain point, that kind of strategy will not work well for a significant chunk of workers, even if it does help workers today on the whole have more bargaining power.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That seems like a reasonable theory to me, and it's kind of plays into the composition piece that I mentioned about workers who are coming online and how that affects the top line figures.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Economic phenomenon because before I think I was talking about it more as a statistical phenomenon, but here as like a real economic phenomenon, so things like the effects of work from home or automation that might have taken place in workplaces due to safety or labor supply concerns. And so I think there are some real questions here that are yet to be completely sorted out, but I think are really important. And a big part of how I'm thinking about the labor market, in part because productivity is so important for making sure wage growth is sustainable for workers and at the Department of Labor. We just really want to see workers get paid what they're due.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fewer workers and that were now kind of recalibrating where businesses are hiring more workers and workers are on average or working fewer hours. So output is roughly constant or slightly negative. And then there's also something else that could have happened, which is frankly that during the pandemic, businesses operated with fewer workers because sick workers also affected overall firm productivity or frankly workers were clocking the same number of hours but working less because of supply chain disruptions. And then finally, it could be a compositional effect where right now we're seeing stronger employment gains in lower productivity sectors like leisure and hospitality that does not of course mean those workers are not valuable. I just mean in macro terms. And so that could just be shifting the overall productivity numbers. And I think that's important in the short run. But then on the long term, there are also possibly meaningful changes on the kind of productivity and real.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I think there's been a really healthy debate around what is happening with labor market productivity. It's both a statistical phenomenon, output over hours worked, as well as a real economic phenomenon. So our ability to produce more given the same inputs, including workers producing more with the same effort. And on both fronts, it's hard to measure this monthly or even the quarterly changes that we get because there's so much that can swing month to month in terms of business investment and hiring. And yearly data is better. So I will caveat with that. But I do think that it does raise some questions. And there has been some interesting research on that front that I think is worth noting. One, around just like the way in which the pandemic may be affecting these kind of short-term prints on productivity that we're getting. There could be, it could be possible that, for instance, productivity rose above trend in 2021 as businesses produced more with.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's some clear things about not just the pandemic, but the response to the pandemic that have impacted the labor market today, their persistence, I think is unclear to me at this point. But we did just see 528,000 new jobs added last month. And so I'm not sure if that question will come to a head just yet. On some of the other trends that I think are really important in the labor market vis- ⁇-vis the pandemic.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a great question. I think there are a few things that I think about when I think about the effects of COVID on the labor market. First, I think this will be the subject of maybe 1,000 research papers in the coming years, especially the relationship between the federal policy response and the labor market today. But we do know that a strong federal policy response kept incomes relatively unchanged or by some measures improved on average. And so that was really important because income can translate into spending, which can translate into job creation. On the small business response, this seemed to be particularly helpful early on in the labor market recovery because there's been studies that have found that small business relief, particularly PPP, helped increase employment, in particular through increasing the percentage of workers who were recalled from layoffs. We also know that layoffs were a big part of unemployment early in the pandemic recession. So I do think that”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Varies by sector, in part because we're seeing, I think the New York Fed actually had a publication on this where the sectors that are the farthest from full recovery, so the farthest below their February 2020 employment level, are the ones where we're seeing the highest wage growth. Those are also the sectors where labor costs are a higher share of total firm costs. And so there's a different story by sector. It's not just like an aggregate wage growth figure, though we often see that reported in the news.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Increases happen in the long run are not just a tight labor market, though we're seeing that in this labor market workers have choice, they get bargaining power and switching jobs is a good way to get a wage increase. But there's also mechanisms that are important, like having bargaining power, whether it's through unions or some other collective action mechanism that allows you to negotiate changes in your employment contract like cost of living increases. So COLA clauses and clauses and contracts can help bear. So that's another thing that we're just not seeing quite the same level of, in part because as union density declined, the prevalence of cola contract and cola clauses and contracts also declined. And so there are some of the typical mechanisms that may have existed decades ago that allow workers to have power and enough power to negotiate wage increases that top inflation mechanically that just aren't quite there in the same way. And then the last piece I will say is that I do think this question also”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it's absolutely an important question. And first off, I would just say it emphasizes why it's so important to get inflation down to a reasonable level. We saw that in July because real wages increased 0.5%, right? Because CPI was unchanged at, which is just one measure of inflation, but it was unchanged for the month of July. And so I think that that's a very important piece of the puzzle in part because workers can feel when the cost of living isn't up to what they would like it to be. It's important to, I think, to think about some of the mechanisms by which sustained increases happen. One, and also to think about the labor market not as just like this aggregate phenomenon, but actually a lot of different sectors, industries that interact and that have different kind of needs and different standards for their workers. So like a kind of big picture level, the mechanisms by which sustained waging.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kind of the best way to kind of bridge that gap to not just rely on where we are at in the business cycle, but to instead make investments in long-run growth and making sure that the benefits of that growth is shared.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I wish that this was a new story for black workers, but unfortunately, you know, there's, I think, a phenomenon that is kind of common parlance these days, which is last hired first fired. And so, you know, frankly, black workers, black men, and black women are often the most reliant on the labor market's strength to be able to achieve better outcomes. And so, you know, yes, I'm always worried about making sure that they have pathways to better jobs, to jobs that are sustainable. At the same time, we also want to see sustained labor market progress. As a department, we're focused on outcomes. So wage growth that's sustainable is important here. The ability for workers to find trainings and apprenticeships and access other jobs if they want to, especially if they're in industries where job quality isn't great or industries that are particularly susceptible to swings in the business cycle. And, you know, I think that that's”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Don't have these clear pathways to jobs based off where you live, based off of your social network, et cetera. And so creating pathways, retraining, apprenticeships, connections to employers who offer good jobs is also a really important part of locking in gains. And then, of course, ensuring that workers do have power when they're on the job. This is an administration that cares deeply about supporting workers' choice to join a union if they want to.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And transportation and warehousing jobs, those kinds of moving jobs, frankly, that black men disproportionately hold. So that's probably a part of the story there, though I will also, of course, note that those are not always the best quality jobs. And so we do want to improve them. The department has an initiative called the Good Jobs Initiative that's really focused on that because we're always so worried in these recoveries about getting jobs and now we're at the point where we at least get a chance to think about are these good jobs how can we give people choices in this labor market. So I do think that that's certainly a part of it. In terms of locking in gains, that is a huge policy question and policy priority for us at the Department of Labor in part because we want to make sure that workers have rights, they have protections through, of course, enforcement, whether it's discrimination issues, wage theft, et cetera. We also want to make sure that workers who want jobs have pathways. Sometimes you”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, so there's a lot to unpack there, but I think to your observation about the unemployment gaps, that is an important aspect of this recovery, right? The gap between black unemployment and white unemployment or Hispanic unemployment and white unemployment tends to be correlated with the business cycle. So when you see a fast recovery, you see a lower ratio of unemployed persons to vacancies, then you are more likely to see better labor market outcomes relative to a looser labor market for black and Hispanic workers. So that is definitely part of the story. I think the nature of the recovery may have particularly helped black men in terms of obtaining a job. So, you know, there was a big increase in consumption on goods relative to services last year, and that has ripple effects along supply chains, including through e-commerce.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For black men at least, a much higher level of employee or a much faster employment recovery than in the last recovery. So for example, their employment population level has been pretty elevated for some time.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I think it's a few things in terms of why it's been declining downward. There are some structural challenge there in terms of access to opportunity. It depends heavily by race too, folks who are interacting with the criminal justice system are also going to struggle more to find employment to get discouraged, to end up leaving the labor force. There are people who are not in the labor force, right? So they're not participating, but who do actually want a job, which I think is an important distinction to make here that not everyone who wants a job is actively looking by the way we measure it in the Bureau of Labor Statistics Surveys. So there are challenges there. I also think that, frankly, this is a place where tighter labor markets can help. I mentioned women with lower levels of education being more likely to be marginally attached. That also can happen for men, particularly for black men. And we're actually seeing”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The word uncertainty is key there because when you have certainty about childcare arrangements, for example, or other care arrangements that enables you to plan either if you're having to work from home, or it enables you to plan to go in person, especially as more people feel comfortable going into work or more employers feel comfortable asking their workers to come in. And so, you know, there's probably some upside risk there. But as you also mentioned, there are bigger investment needs in that space”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, workplace safety, including school policies as well. And so I think there's a pretty complex story there, but I would really underline the importance of looking at the nuance within the population of women in the US economy. And we can get into race as well. I think that's important too.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think a few things are happening, but I think it's important to delineate even within gender different populations, right? Women are not a monolith, men are not a monolith. And I think it's important to do that in part because when we think about how the recession affected women and their labor force participation rate, the ability to work from home likely played a big role. Women with higher levels of education, even if they still had caregiving duties were more able to keep their jobs, women who had to go in person for work, whether they were mothers or not, were more likely to have to lose their job, get laid off, et cetera. And so I do think that the education plays an important role there. And then in terms of the labor force participation rate right now, I think this is a very well-told story that for women, the ability to enter the workforce is affected by a number of factors, including care, including”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mix of structural trends, and there are some unique things that are happening right now that are affecting the composition of the labor force.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think Claudia Golden actually has a really interesting working paper that came out this year that highlights kind of the relationship between some of the pre-pandemic labor market trends and how we assess it today, particularly the fact that, for instance, there's a big run up in female labor force participation right before the pandemic recession, and that matters for how we think about female labor force participation today. And that big increase in the run-up right before the recession was among women with lower levels of education, young children, younger women, they're more marginally attached. Those are also some of the women whom we could see coming back now and that would improve labor force participation. In fact, education plays a big role. For instance, both men without college degrees and women without college degrees who are in their prime age working years could come back to the labor market and improve labor force participation. That's in addition to the fact that people die, there's excess retirements, all those other stories that we've been talking about.”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think in a very online world, there's often a rush to assess the state of the labor market. But I see things a few ways. One, there are real through lines that are trends, especially when we're talking about the labor force participation rate. There's an aging population, for example. There's gender shifts, particularly with labor force participation rates for men, particularly white men, declining over time. That was pre-pandemic. That was occurring during the recovery from the Great Recession. And so there are real things that are more structural. I think I would also include immigration in the way that's affecting overall labor supply as a structural change, though this administration is doing all we can to increase authorized immigration and fixing some of the mistakes that were made by the last administration. But there's also some things that may be unique to what we've just experienced, which was a huge disruption to the US economy, a deep recession, and a really...”
2022-08-29 · Odd Lots · Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source