Hi. I'm Carl Tannenbaum, Chief Economist for Northern Trust. On a personal level, measuring the supply and demand for labor is simple. My boss always has more demand than I'm able to supply. In the job market, those conditions would usually produce increasing wages, but that hasn't been the case for me. 

On a macro level, measuring the supply and demand for labor has gotten much harder over the past year. This has complicated forecasts of inflation and unemployment, which has, in turn, complicated the conduct of monetary policy. This additional uncertainty comes at a critical time in the business cycle. 

The United States is on the verge of what has become known as a soft landing. A surge in inflation three years ago prompted aggressive tightening from the Federal Reserve. The fear was that taming the price level could produce a recession and a significant rise in joblessness. 

Fortunately, we've seen neither of those things. The American economy continues to grow at a solid pace, and unemployment has increased only marginally. Inflation has fallen sharply and is nearing the Fed's 2% target. This favorable combination has been very supportive of market performance. 

But sticking the soft landing will require careful calibration. The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate-- price stability and maximum sustainable employment. Readings on each of these are central inputs to the practice of setting interest rates. 

Unfortunately, getting a sense of what's happening in the labor market has become much more challenging. A surge in immigration, not all of which has been well accounted for, muddies the assessment of labor supply. Response rates to the surveys which measure employment levels, job openings, and turnover have fallen sharply since the pandemic. The changing nature and locus of work in the post-COVID era has introduced new measurement complications. 

As a result, recent revisions to employment data have been especially large. This makes it hard to know how much slack there is in the labor market and diminishes the confidence that investors have in reacting when the figures are first released. Trends which seemed especially important in real time can diminish or disappear on further review. 

To adapt, observers have broadened the array of information used in assessing labor market conditions. Online job portals such as LinkedIn, Indeed, and others have interesting metrics that can fill gaps in government releases. Dashboards are now preferred to data points. 

I've been thinking of creating a personal labor market dashboard to show my boss. Included will be my daily email flows, nightly sign-off times, and blood pressure readings. Maybe that data will earn me a modest raise. 

And that's the view from here.