The U.S. labor market cooled in April, but continues to resist the impact of high inflation and rising interest rates, with the unemployment rate dipping to 3.4%, a 50-year low. The reasons behind the labor market’s astounding recovery from the pandemic are still unclear, but the latest data may give the Federal Reserve good reason to believe its rate-hiking campaign isn’t doing as much damage as once feared, according to Jason Furman, one of the Obama administration’s top economic advisors.
“We’re now well into the era of the mystery of the extra workers,” Furman, who is currently an economics professor at Harvard University, tweeted Friday about the unprecedented rebound, adding that the recovery is exceeding pre-pandemic forecasts, “which is especially amazing given that the population is smaller than they expected due to premature deaths and missing immigrants.”
