Business Cycle Indicators, December 9th

Personal income excluding transfers and industrial production are falling in October, even as employment rises in November.

 

Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment (blue), industrial production (red), personal income excluding transfers in Ch.2012$ (green), manufacturing and trade sales in Ch.2012$ (black), and monthly GDP in Ch.2012$ (pink), all log normalized to 2019M01=0.  Source: BLS, Federal Reserve, BEA, via FRED, Macroeconomic Advisers (10/28 release), and author’s calculations.

Interestingly, while employment is rising strongly in November, it still lags the 2016-18 trend.

 

Figure 2: Nonfarm payroll employment (blue), forecast from ARIMA(0,1,0) estimated over 2016-18 (red), and 95% prediction interval (gray lines), all in 000’s, s.a. Source. BLS, and author’s calculations.