Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee on What the Job Market Is Really Telling Us

It’s never been a more important time to understand the labor market.

现在是了解劳动力市场的最重要时刻。

The Fed is entering a rate cutting cycle, the government shut down, and private players are developing their own numbers to try and close the gap.

美联储正在进入降息周期，政府关闭，私营企业正在开发自己的数据，试图缩小差距。

I sat down with Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee to talk about what the Chicago Fed’s new real-time labor market indicators are telling us and how the Fed should navigate a steady-but-thin job market.

我与芝加哥联储行长奥斯坦·古尔斯比（Austan Goolsbee）坐下来讨论了芝加哥联储新的实时劳动力市场指标告诉我们什么，以及美联储应如何驾驭稳定但清淡的就业市场。

We also get into how labor-force participation complicates the story, what AI is doing to early-career hiring, and why this moment might force a broader rethink of how we measure work itself.

我们还探讨了劳动力参与如何使情况变得复杂、人工智能对早期职业招聘的影响，以及为什么此时此刻可能会迫使我们对如何衡量工作本身进行更广泛的重新思考。

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.

为了清晰和流畅，本文字记录经过了轻微编辑。

Below is the audio version, which is also available wherever you listen to podcasts.

以下是音频版本，无论您在何处收听播客，都可以使用该版本。

This is a reader-supported publication.

这是一本由读者支持的出版物。

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

要接收新帖子并支持我的工作，请考虑成为付费订阅者。

Kyla: President Goolsbee, thanks so much for joining me today.

凯拉：古尔斯比总统，非常感谢您今天加入我的行列。

Kyla: I’m really excited to talk about the Chicago Fed Labor Market indicators because we desperately need some sort of information about the labor market right now.

凯拉：我真的很高兴谈论芝加哥联储劳动力市场指标，因为我们现在迫切需要一些有关劳动力市场的信息。

Can you walk through what these labor market indicators are supposed to do and the goal that you had with publishing them?

您能否介绍一下这些劳动力市场指标的用途以及发布这些指标的目标？

One is a real time estimate of what the unemployment rate is going to be at the next job report.

其中之一是对下一份就业报告中失业率的实时估计。

Then the other two are a hiring rate of unemployed workers and a layoffs and separations rate for people that currently have jobs, because there’s a lot of churn going on at any given moment in the job market.

另外两个是失业工人的雇用率以及目前有工作的人的裁员和离职率，因为就业市场上的任何特定时刻都会发生大量的流失。

If you have 100,000 jobs created for the month, that’s 5.2 million jobs that were created and 5.1 million jobs that were lost for a net of 100,000 jobs.

如果本月创造了 100,000 个就业岗位，那么净 100,000 个就业岗位就意味着创造了 520 万个就业岗位，同时也损失了 510 万个就业岗位。

So we looked at those flows and then it turned out that just as we announced this multi-month effort to build these statistics the government shut down and there’s not going to be an unemployment number.

因此，我们研究了这些流量，结果发现，就在我们宣布这项为期数月的努力来建立这些统计数据时，政府关闭了，并且不会出现失业人数。

Our data is not as good as the BLS.

我们的数据不如劳工统计局。

The BLS numbers are the best job numbers in the world but if we cannot have the best job numbers in the world, we are going to have to go with what we do have and what we have is this - based on what we know:

美国劳工统计局的数据是世界上最好的就业数据，但如果我们不能拥有世界上最好的就业数据，我们将不得不使用我们现有的数据，而我们所拥有的就是——基于我们所知道的：

Our real-time estimate is that the unemployment rate would’ve stayed the same at 4.3%

我们的实时估计是失业率将保持在 4.3% 不变

The hiring rate of unemployed workers went down a tiny fraction.

失业工人的雇用率略有下降。

It still remains basically 45%.

基本还是保持在45%左右。

The layoff and the separation rates are also very constant, just a little above 2%.

裁员和离职率也非常稳定，略高于 2%。

So I feel like those numbers are showing the steadiness in the job market that is a bit in contrast to those monthly payroll numbers which are all over the map.

所以我觉得这些数字显示了就业市场的稳定性，这与遍布地图上的每月工资数字形成了鲜明对比。

Kyla: Could you talk about sort of the difference between the metric that you all have created relative to what the government produces?

凯拉：您能谈谈你们创建的指标与政府制定的指标之间的差异吗？

There is a lot of concern about the labor market.

人们对劳动力市场有很多担忧。

People are having a tough time finding jobs.

人们很难找到工作。

The JOLTS (Job Opening and Labor Turnover) survey data are about the flows .

JOLTS（职位空缺和劳动力流动）调查数据是关于流动的。

The job market is like a bathtub and there’s water going out and there’s water going in.

就业市场就像一个浴缸，有水流出，也有水流入。

If you look at the speed that the water’s coming in and the speed that the water’s going out, it will tell you something about the level of the bathtub.

如果您观察水流入的速度和流出的速度，它会告诉您有关浴缸水位的信息。

That’s the approach that we’re taking with these statistics.

这就是我们对这些统计数据采取的方法。

We’re basically trying to add up ‘What’s the chance that you come out of unemployment and into employment?’ That would affect the unemployment rate.

我们基本上是在尝试将“您摆脱失业并就业的机会有多大？”相加，这会影响失业率。

‘What’s the chance that you have a job and you lose that job?’ Either you quit or you’re laid off or discharged, etc.

“你有一份工作，但失去那份工作的可能性有多大？”要么你辞职，要么你被解雇或解雇，等等。

By measuring those from all the angles that we can, we can use the past and say - in the past when all of these indicators said ABC, what did that mean for the unemployment rate?

通过从我们能做到的所有角度来衡量这些指标，我们可以利用过去的情况来说——在过去，当所有这些指标都显示 ABC 时，这对失业率意味着什么？

So that’s the way we construct it.

这就是我们构建它的方式。

That’s a little different than the unemployment rate that the BLS puts out, which comes from the Current Population Survey, which contacts tens of thousands of people and just asks them, “did you have a job last week?” As I say, the BLS data is the best there is, but it’s not without flaws and it’s in an environment where people don’t like answering their phone and they don’t like doing surveys.

这与劳工统计局公布的失业率略有不同，后者来自当前人口调查，该调查联系了数以万计的人，只是问他们，“你上周有工作吗？”正如我所说，劳工统计局的数据是最好的，但它并非没有缺陷，而且它是在人们不喜欢接电话、不喜欢做调查的环境中得出的。

You’ve seen the response rate even of the BLS data really fall almost in half.

您已经看到，即使是 BLS 数据的响应率也几乎下降了一半。

It’s not just the BLS that has that problem.

不只是劳工统计局有这个问题。

All private data have that problem.

所有私有数据都有这个问题。

Everybody has that problem.

每个人都有这样的问题。

So we’ve got more variability, and the official data are so good that it takes a long time to put them together at that high of a quality.

所以我们有更多的可变性，而且官方数据非常好，需要很长时间才能将它们以如此高的质量整合在一起。

It comes out with more of a lag than would be ideal.

结果比理想情况有更多的滞后。

I always say that I’m one of the data dogs on the FOMC and a central rule of the data dogs is to sniff every piece of data that hits the floor because it might be food.

我总是说我是 FOMC 的数据狗之一，数据狗的中心规则是嗅探落地的每一条数据，因为它可能是食物。

At moments like this, where some of our tent pole marquee numbers like payroll and employment have question marks about whether they’re a good indicator of where we are in the business cycle, whether because of immigration or labor force participation or things like that, go sniff everything .

在这样的时刻，我们的一些重要数字，如工资和就业，对于它们是否能很好地表明我们在商业周期中的位置存在疑问，无论是因为移民或劳动力参与还是类似的事情，去嗅一嗅一切吧。

What we’re trying to do with these labor market indicators is gather all the best data that we can find and use it to make a projection of the throughline in the job market.

我们试图利用这些劳动力市场指标来收集我们能找到的所有最佳数据，并用它来预测就业市场的整体情况。

Kyla: How does this indicator capture people who drop out of the labor force entirely, like maybe younger workers or more precarious workers?

凯拉：这个指标如何捕捉完全退出劳动力市场的人，比如年轻工人或不稳定的工人？

In the period since COVID, we’ve had remarkably high labor force participation for what our demographics are.

自新冠疫情爆发以来，就我们的人口统计数据而言，我们的劳动力参与率非常高。

The baby boom’s retiring and labor force participation was forecast to be trending down pretty significantly at this point but we’re not picking that up in our new statistics.

预计婴儿潮时期的退休和劳动力参与率目前将呈显着下降趋势，但我们并没有在新的统计数据中考虑到这一点。

That is an issue facing the official data, too.

这也是官方数据面临的问题。

The unemployment rate is only for workers that are actively seeking employment.

失业率仅适用于积极寻找就业的工人。

If you stop looking for work, you drop out of the job market statistics, you’re not in the unemployment rate - and we should be nervous about that.

如果你停止找工作，你就会从就业市场统计中消失，你就不在失业率之内——我们应该对此感到紧张。

We should also think about the employment rate.

我们还应该考虑就业率。

In a world where the immigration is changing, population is aging, and women are making choices about whether to be in the labor force or not be in the labor force and whether to have kids, it’s super important when people choose not to be in the labor force, but it’s hard to track properly.

在移民不断变化、人口老龄化、女性正在选择是否加入劳动力市场以及是否生孩子的世界中，人们选择不加入劳动力市场的情况非常重要，但很难正确追踪。

Kyla: Do you think there has to be a mindset shift to start thinking in terms of the employment rate versus the unemployment rate?

凯拉：您认为必须转变思维方式才能开始考虑就业率与失业率吗？

So we had to grapple with that shift in mindset.

因此，我们必须应对这种思维方式的转变。

That’s what makes this last five years so interesting from a data perspective - we completely reversed that argument.

从数据的角度来看，这就是过去五年如此有趣的原因——我们完全扭转了这一论点。

Many people through the 2000s were saying, “Of course labor force participation’s going down.

2000 年代的许多人都在说：“劳动力参与率当然在下降。

There’s nothing about the business cycle about that.

这与商业周期无关。

We’re aging.

我们正在变老。

That’s how it’s going to be.”

事情就是这样。”

Then we saw when the labor market was as tight as we’ve ever seen, and labor force participation jumped back up higher than what we would’ve forecast where it was going to be.

然后我们看到劳动力市场变得前所未有的紧张，劳动力参与率回升至高于我们预期的水平。

But - what would it have been?

但是——那会是什么？

It is worth thinking about where we are relative to where we would have been if there had been no changes.

值得思考的是，如果没有发生任何变化，我们现在所处的位置。

And that said, I still think that in the here and now, every data point that we’re getting, except for monthly payroll, is largely saying we have a pretty steady labor market with low hiring and low firing.

也就是说，我仍然认为，此时此地，除了月度工资之外，我们获得的每个数据点在很大程度上都表明我们有一个相当稳定的劳动力市场，招聘率低，解雇率低。

That’s unusual, but that is where we are.

这很不寻常，但这就是我们的处境。

That might be full employment and that’s the thing that we’re having to chew on a little bit.

这可能是充分就业，这是我们必须认真考虑的事情。

Kyla: The Fed entered a rate cutting cycle and cited a slowing labor market as perhaps one of the reasons for that.

凯拉：美联储进入降息周期，并指出劳动力市场放缓可能是原因之一。

So how do you think the Fed and policymakers in general should think about this new data when thinking about the direction that they want to go with policy decisions?

那么，您认为美联储和政策制定者在考虑政策决策的方向时应该如何考虑这些新数据？

What I look for in these data indicators that the Chicago Fed is putting out and in all the other indicators is very much trying to get the throughline- where we are in the business cycle.

我在芝加哥联储发布的这些数据指标以及所有其他指标中寻找的都是非常努力地了解我们处于商业周期的哪个阶段。

In normal times, the number of jobs in the aggregate is normally pretty strongly correlated with where we are in a business cycle.

在正常情况下，就业岗位总数通常与我们所处的经济周期密切相关。

If it goes negative - that’s a sign that recession may be coming.

如果为负值，则表明经济衰退可能即将到来。

If you start seeing big positives, that’s a sign to be wary that the economy’s overheating.

如果你开始看到巨大的积极因素，那就是对经济过热保持警惕的信号。

We saw in 2023 and 2024 how wrong that can go.

我们在 2023 年和 2024 年看到了这种情况可能会变得多么错误。

It was the other way.

事实恰恰相反。

We were getting lots of unrecognized immigration.

我们收到了大量未被承认的移民。

The population growth rate was higher than we knew when we were making the estimates.

人口增长率比我们做出估计时所知道的要高。

We were having hundreds thousands of jobs created each month, well in excess of what we thought was a breakeven rate.

我们每个月创造数十万个就业岗位，远远超过我们认为的盈亏平衡率。

So, there were a bunch of people looking at payroll employment and saying, “We’re overheating.

因此，有很多人在关注薪资就业情况时说：“我们过热了。

Inflation is about to come booming back because how can we sustain jobs numbers as big as this?”

通货膨胀即将卷土重来，因为我们如何才能维持如此庞大的就业人数呢？”

We came to find out the jobs numbers were reflecting fluctuations in labor supply and population that we didn’t know at the time.

我们发现就业数据反映了我们当时不知道的劳动力供应和人口的波动。

And the lesson of that period I think was that measures of labor market rates like the layoff rate, the vacancy rate, the unemployment rate, the hiring rate were more accurate indicators of where we were in the business cycle than the monthly payroll was.

我认为那个时期的教训是，劳动力市场利率的衡量标准，如裁员率、空缺率、失业率、雇用率，比月度工资更能准确地反映我们所处的商业周期。

So, I hope that people look at these Chicago Fed indicatorsas perhaps a better indication of where we are in the job market when there are moments where immigration and others are making the population uncertain.

因此，我希望人们将芝加哥联储的这些指标视为当移民和其他因素使人们感到不确定时我们在就业市场中所处位置的更好指标。

Kyla: One of my favorite think tanks is Employ America.

凯拉：我最喜欢的智库之一是就业美国。

They advocate for looking at the quits rate because they’re like, listen, if people feel like they can quit their job, that’s probably a pretty good indicator of what’s going on in the labor market.

他们主张关注辞职率，因为他们说，听着，如果人们觉得他们可以辞职，这可能是劳动力市场状况的一个很好的指标。

Usually when you go into recession, layoffs go way up, and we are not really seeing that.

通常，当经济陷入衰退时，裁员人数会大幅增加，但我们并没有真正看到这一点。

So it’s a bit of a puzzle.

所以这有点令人困惑。

There are cross currents in the data that we’re grappling with.

我们正在处理的数据中存在交叉流。

Almost all of them have been steady.

几乎所有的人都保持稳定。

So that low hiring, low firing environment has been with us now for a fair bit of time.

因此，低招聘、低解雇的环境已经伴随我们相当长一段时间了。

It doesn’t exactly look like we’re on the precipice of something in the way that if you over index on the monthly payroll declines and the revisions being big negatives, you could convince yourself that maybe this is the edge of a precipice - but most of the other indicators are not that.

看起来我们并没有处于悬崖边缘，如果你对月度工资下降的指数过度关注，并且修正结果是巨大的负面影响，你可以说服自己，也许这就是悬崖的边缘——但大多数其他指标并非如此。

Kyla: I want to ask you an AI question, sorry.

Kyla：抱歉，我想问你一个人工智能问题。

There’s been a lot of debate on if AI is replacing young people.

关于人工智能是否正在取代年轻人存在很多争论。

So when you think about the labor market indicators and when you think about how the Fed thinks about the labor market indicators, how do you think AI is going to tie into all of that, especially for younger people?

因此，当你考虑劳动力市场指标以及美联储如何看待劳动力市场指标时，你认为人工智能将如何与所有这些联系起来，特别是对于年轻人来说？

But on this side of the ledger, I just want to remind everybody that high productivity growth is fabulous.

但在这一方面，我只是想提醒大家，生产率的高增长是令人难以置信的。

We want high productivity growth.

我们想要生产率的高增长。

Let’s pray that we get to deal with the issues of transition.

让我们祈祷我们能够处理过渡问题。

If you don’t have productivity growth, real wages can’t rise, and that’s a far bigger problem.

如果生产率没有增长，实际工资就无法增长，这是一个更大的问题。

Now, on the other side of this ledger is the differential impacts.

现在，这个账本的另一面是不同的影响。

If AI is as big as its proponents say, will that have differential impacts on different parts of the labor market?

如果人工智能像其支持者所说的那样强大，这会对劳动力市场的不同部分产生不同的影响吗？

Probably it will - both by industry and potentially by age.

可能会——无论是按行业还是按年龄。

You’ve seen that play out a little bit, but I still characterize most of what people are saying as forecasts for the future; that there is going to be huge improvement.

你已经看到了这一点，但我仍然将人们所说的大部分内容描述为对未来的预测；将会有巨大的改进。

They are going to replace accountants, replace lawyers, replace various occupations.

他们将取代会计师，取代律师，取代各种职业。

I do think you’ve seen the impact in the hiring rate of young workers, especially in tech.

我确实认为你已经看到了年轻员工招聘率的影响，尤其是在科技领域。

If you look at the unemployment rate of new graduates in STEM fields and computer fields, that used to be the lowest of all the majors.

如果你看看STEM领域和计算机领域的应届毕业生失业率，它曾经是所有专业中最低的。

Now it’s among the highest of all the majors, but it’s worth objectively pointing out, it’s still pretty low.

现在已经是所有专业中最高的了，但值得客观指出的是，它仍然相当低。

If you look at computer science graduates , the hiring rate is low, but the unemployment rate is not objectively that high.

如果你看看计算机科学专业的毕业生，招聘率很低，但失业率客观上并没有那么高。

It’s just frustrating compared to what the job market was for the previous five years.

与过去五年的就业市场相比，这真是令人沮丧。

I am a great believer in the ability of young people adapting and moving into new industries.

我非常相信年轻人适应和进入新行业的能力。

If you don’t think that will happen now, I would simply caution you to just go back and look back 30 years and go to Silicon Valley.

如果你认为现在不会发生这种情况，我只是提醒你回过头看看 30 年前，然后去硅谷。

What were they doing?

他们在做什么？

It’s fundamentally different.

这是根本不同的。

If you go back far enough, they were making hardware.

如果你回溯得足够远的话，他们正在制造硬件。

Making chips that now are low end chips made in other countries.

现在生产的芯片都是其他国家生产的低端芯片。

They were doing the kinds of software that nobody does anymore, but that hasn’t made Silicon Valley an unpleasant place to work because they just kept moving from thing to thing, which you can do if you have the skillset.

他们正在开发无人再开发的软件，但这并没有让硅谷成为一个不愉快的工作场所，因为他们只是不断地从一件事转移到另一件事，如果你有技能，你就可以做到这一点。

Kyla: The labor market has a breadth problem.

凯拉：劳动力市场存在广度问题。

Back when the government was working, we would get data saying that most of the jobs added were just in healthcare and social services.

当政府工作时，我们得到的数据显示，新增的大部分工作岗位都集中在医疗保健和社会服务领域。

Manufacturing’s losing jobs, finance is losing jobs.

制造业正在失去工作，金融业正在失去工作。

So how do the labor market indicators that you all have developed think about something like that?

那么你们制定的劳动力市场指标是如何看待这样的事情的呢？

Goolsbee: We haven’t gone into sectoral information in our new statistics.

古尔斯比：我们的新统计数据中没有涉及部门信息。

If you want to do some narrower and narrower cuts of the data, you need to have bigger and bigger samples of the data.

如果你想对数据进行越来越窄的切割，你需要有越来越大的数据样本。

So, it’s really mostly only the government data that can pull that off.

因此，实际上只有政府数据才能实现这一目标。

If you want to do something that’s a 1% sample, you need a big sample for that to be able to count on it.

如果你想做 1% 样本的事情，你需要一个大样本才能可靠。

That said, we had such a strange sectoral business cycle coming through COVID.

也就是说，我们在新冠疫情期间经历了如此奇怪的部门商业周期。

It was like nothing that ever happened before.

这就像以前从未发生过一样。

Normally, cyclical industries drive the recession and the most cyclical industries are the most rate sensitive parts of the economy, and that’s why the Fed is the natural touch point for economic stabilization, consumer durables, business investment, housing construction.

通常情况下，周期性行业会推动经济衰退，而最具周期性的行业是经济中对利率最敏感的部分，这就是为什么美联储是经济稳定、耐用消费品、商业投资、住房建设的自然接触点。

These are very cyclical parts of the economy usually, and they’re very interest rate sensitive.

这些通常是经济中周期性很强的部分，而且对利率非常敏感。

If you start seeing those going down and then the Fed cuts the interest rate, that tends to buck them back up.

如果你开始看到这些下降，然后美联储降息，这往往会促使它们回升。

And if the economy’s overheating, it’s usually because those sectors are overheating, so raising the interest rate cools them down.

如果经济过热，通常是因为这些行业过热，因此提高利率可以让它们降温。

COVID was a recession driven by services.

新冠疫情是由服务业驱动的衰退。

Nobody can spend their money on going to the dentist and stuff like that.

没有人可以花钱去看牙医之类的事情。

It’s the first recession I think ever where the demand for consumer durables goes up in the recession and the demand for housing goes up in the recession.

我认为这是有史以来第一次衰退，耐用消费品的需求在衰退中上升，住房需求在衰退中上升。

Part of what we’re seeing on the jobs front is a bit of a recalibration, of resetting back to the old trend that we used to spend before COVID where 75 - 80% of our consumer spending budget was on services.

我们在就业方面看到的部分情况是一种重新调整，即重新回到新冠疫情之前我们支出的旧趋势，即我们的消费者支出预算的 75-80% 用于服务。

Then we go through this weird period where all we can buy are physical goods and everybody’s getting a Peloton, and now we’re shifting back.

然后我们经历了这个奇怪的时期，我们能买到的都是实物商品，每个人都得到了 Peloton，现在我们正在回归。

That will contribute to a breadth problem.

这将导致广度问题。

All of that said, over time we’ve gotten more and more healthcare oriented.

综上所述，随着时间的推移，我们越来越注重医疗保健。

So it’s not surprising that healthcare is going to be a bigger and bigger share of the jobs, leisure, and hospitality in a world where there is productivity growth, either from AI or from anything else that’s so far been concentrated in physical goods.

因此，在生产力增长的世界中，医疗保健将在工作、休闲和酒店业中占据越来越大的份额，这并不奇怪，无论是来自人工智能还是迄今为止集中在实物产品的其他任何东西。

For example, the price of TVs gets cut in half.

例如，电视的价格减半。

You don’t buy two TVs, you just still buy the same TV, but you just spend less of your income on it.

你不会购买两台电视，你只是仍然购买同一台电视，只是你花在电视上的收入减少了。

More of your income starts going to human beings.

你的更多收入开始流向人类。

Human beings are the thing that gets more expensive.

人类是变得更加昂贵的东西。

So part of that breadth problem might be natural.

因此，广度问题的一部分可能是自然的。

Kyla: What do you think the one thing that you would want the public to take away from this data release?

凯拉：您认为您希望公众从本次数据发布中了解到的一件事是什么？

The other thing that jumps out at you from these indicators is the stability of the job market.

从这些指标中脱颖而出的另一件事是就业市场的稳定性。

So far, it is not falling apart.

到目前为止，它还没有崩溃。

The hiring rate is relatively low, but stable.

招聘率相对较低，但稳定。

The layoff rate is also low and stable, and the unemployment rate is largely unchanged, which is a point of stability.

裁员率也低且稳定，失业率基本没有变化，是一个稳定点。

I am here on Kyla Scanlon’s show so you knew we had to talk about vibes.

我参加了凯拉·斯坎伦的节目，所以你知道我们必须谈论共鸣。

We are potentially going to be back into one of these conflicts between the data and the vibes sometime soon.

我们可能很快就会再次陷入数据和氛围之间的冲突之一。

Because if you look at the history of consumer sentiment, government shutdowns have often been correlated with big drops in consumer sentiment.

因为如果你回顾一下消费者信心的历史，就会发现政府关门往往与消费者信心的大幅下降有关。

Employment growth is an unreliable signal and slack is the story now: Goolsbee underscored that traditional measures like monthly payrolls have become noisy and potentially misleading, especially when immigration, labor-force participation, and survey response rates are volatile.

就业增长是一个不可靠的信号，而现在的情况是萧条：古尔斯比强调，月度就业人数等传统指标已经变得嘈杂，并且可能具有误导性，特别是在移民、劳动力参与率和调查回复率波动的情况下。

His team’s new Chicago Fed Labor Market Indicators are meant to fill this data vacuum by tracking flows in and out of employment.

他的团队新推出的芝加哥联储劳动力市场指标旨在通过跟踪就业流入和流出来填补这一数据真空。

This directly echoes Guy Berger’s argument in “We Don’t Need More Employment Growth Nowcasts!” : the economy no longer needs more guesses about payrolls; it needs slack nowcasts - these real-time measures of hiring rates, separations, and the true level of labor-market tightness.

这直接呼应了盖伊·伯杰（Guy Berger）在《我们不需要更多就业增长即时预测！》中的论点。 ：经济不再需要对就业人数进行更多猜测；它需要即时预测——这些实时衡量招聘率、离职率和劳动力市场紧张程度的实时指标。

Goolsbee’s “bathtub” metaphor (inflows and outflows) is exactly that kind of slack measurement.

古尔斯比的“浴缸”比喻（流入和流出）正是这种松弛测量。

The labor market is stable, but thin: Goolsbee called it a “low-hiring, low-firing” environment - but a steady environment overall.

劳动力市场稳定，但规模较小：古尔斯比称其为“低招聘、低解雇”环境，但总体而言是一个稳定的环境。

The Chicago Fed’s real-time estimate shows an unchanged 4.3% unemployment rate, hiring of unemployed workers holding near 45%, and layoffs just above 2%.

芝加哥联储的实时预测显示，失业率保持在 4.3% 不变，失业工人的雇用率接近 45%，裁员率略高于 2%。

That calm contrasts with Carlyle’s grim payroll read , which implied a slowdown.

这种平静与卡莱尔严峻的薪资数据形成鲜明对比，后者意味着经济放缓。

But this is clearly a push-and-pull problem.

但这显然是一个推拉问题。

It underscores Mohamed El-Erian’s warnin g in “ As Growth Decouples From Employment, the Fed Faces a Trilemma.” GDP growth (Carlyle pegged it at 2.7% ) remains solid even as job creation sputters.

它强调了穆罕默德·埃里安（Mohamed El-Erian）在《随着增长与就业脱钩，美联储面临三难困境》中的警告。尽管创造就业机会的步伐缓慢，但 GDP 增长（凯雷预测为 2.7%）仍然稳健。

The US economy is expanding, but the labor market isn’t broadening and so what looks like stability may actually be brittleness.

美国经济正在扩张，但劳动力市场并未扩大，因此看似稳定实际上可能是脆弱的。

Markets, however, are treating weak payrolls as a green light for rate cuts.

然而，市场将疲弱的就业数据视为降息的绿灯。

El-Erian calls that a dangerous loop: easing policy to offset soft employment could inflate risk assets while inflation remains above target - and with data telling such different stories, it’s even more confusing to figure out what’s going on.

埃尔-埃里安称这是一个危险的循环：为抵消就业疲软而采取的宽松政策可能会导致风险资产膨胀，而通胀仍高于目标——而且由于数据讲述了如此不同的故事，弄清楚到底发生了什么就更加令人困惑。

Labor-force participation should guide the narrative: Maybe we do need a mindset shift!

劳动力参与应该引导叙述：也许我们确实需要观念转变！

Instead of obsessing over the unemployment rate, which does exclude discouraged workers, Goolsbee suggested tracking the employment-to-population ratio.

古尔斯比建议不要过分关注失业率，因为失业率确实排除了灰心丧气的工人，而是追踪就业与人口的比率。

In his words, “We should also think about the employment rate.

用他的话说，“我们还应该考虑就业率。

That’s an important measure of the economy.” This is where Goolsbee and Berger converge: the next frontier in labor data is coverage .

这是衡量经济的一个重要指标。”这就是古尔斯比和伯杰的共同点：劳动力数据的下一个前沿是覆盖范围。

Who’s missing from the numbers is now the more consequential question.

现在更重要的问题是谁被从数字中遗漏了。

Oh, vibes: The Carlyle data reinforces a paradox: inflation is still sticky, while the labor market looks weak.

哦，共鸣：凯雷的数据强化了一个悖论：通胀仍然粘性，而劳动力市场看起来疲软。

Goolsbee’s indicators show a steady job market, not one in crisis, yet sentiment could deteriorate as the shutdown drags on.

古尔斯比的指标显示就业市场稳定，并未陷入危机，但随着政府关门的持续，市场情绪可能会恶化。

“We might be back into one of these conflicts between the data and the vibes,” he said.

“我们可能会再次陷入数据和氛围之间的冲突之一，”他说。

In other words: the real trilemma isn’t inflation-jobs-stability.

换句话说：真正的三难困境不是通货膨胀-就业-稳定。

It’s data-vibes-policy.

这是数据氛围政策。

The bigger picture is that we’re entering a phase where labor data itself is becoming a policy variable.

更大的前景是，我们正在进入一个劳动力数据本身正在成为政策变量的阶段。

The government shutdown, new private estimates, and the Chicago Fed’s real-time model all point to the same problem: we’re flying on fuzzier instruments.

政府关门、新的私人估计以及芝加哥联储的实时模型都指向同一问题：我们正在使用更加模糊的工具飞行。

At the same time, the economy looks steady but thin with a job market that feels fragile beneath the surface.

与此同时，经济看起来稳定但薄弱，就业市场表面上感觉脆弱。

Goolsbee’s point is that we need to measure better before we can decide better because the next policy mistake may not come from getting the economy wrong, but from misreading the data that defines it.

古尔斯比的观点是，我们需要更好地衡量，然后才能做出更好的决定，因为下一个政策错误可能不是来自对经济的误解，而是来自对定义经济的数据的误读。

This is a reader-supported publication.

这是一本由读者支持的出版物。

To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber.

要接收新帖子并支持我的工作，请考虑成为付费订阅者。

Great interview.

很棒的采访。

This is an obviously very complex issue with lots of unknowns and assumptions, but I feel like I have a much better grasp of it now.

这显然是一个非常复杂的问题，有很多未知数和假设，但我觉得我现在对它有了更好的掌握。

Excellent.

出色的。

“So far, it (the job market) is not falling apart”.

“到目前为止，（就业市场）并没有崩溃”。

That’s just plain good news.

这真是个好消息。

As to vibes that’s experiencing a little turbulence, meaning opportunity & hardship at the same time.

至于正在经历一点动荡的氛围，意味着机会和困难同时存在。

The Kyla narrative around the Attention Economy is relevant.

凯拉关于注意力经济的叙述是相关的。

Where we exit this turbulence will depend on what we believe.

我们从哪里退出这场动荡将取决于我们的信念。