FEATURED POST
February 25, 2025
The other T word
Economic news has been dominated by two T words this year: Technology and tariffs. But there’s another T word that promises to have a far greater impact on the job market and inflation: Turnover.
Read more
Subscribe to Data Lab
Stay up-to-date on the latest reports and trends.
Stay up to date with Data Lab
Please complete all fields.
Filter by:
February 18, 2025
Worker-consumer synchronicity
Last week’s consumer sentiment data flashed a yellow light of caution that the consumer resilience that has powered the U.S. economic engine over the last four years is sputtering. Consumer retail sales in January fell by 0.9 percent from December, a much stronger pullback than economists had expected. The spending decline was broad-based, meaning that even colder-than-average temperatures across much of the country couldn’t completely explain the magnitude of the slowdown.
Read more
February 10, 2025
January job reports are different. Here’s why.
Every job report is important to economists, but the January releases stand apart. Not only do they set the tone for the year, they also introduce annual technical adjustments and benchmarking, which affects employment estimates all year.
Got questions? Here are some answers about January job reports.
Read more
January 27, 2025
The age of work
The United States is getting older, and its workforce is aging, too. This week, ADP chief economist Nela Richardson teams up with Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace to explore what this massive demographic shift might mean for the economy and the workplace.
Read more
January 21, 2025
Skills in the Era of AI and Aging
Last week, I wrote about the skills opportunity uncovered by ADP research. However, within that opportunity there lies a paradox. In today’s workplace, skills are being created and retired simultaneously, at rapid rates. How can skills evolution be jumping forward and falling behind at the same time? The answer lies in two megatrends which will reshape the workforce of the future: aging demographics and rapid-fire innovation.
Read more
January 13, 2025
The skills opportunity
Job reports move markets because they’re the strongest signal economists have about the strength of the U.S. economy. But worker productivity is just as important to economic growth; it’s just harder to measure or capture.
Read more
December 16, 2024
Word of the year: Stability
The path to becoming a Merriam-Webster or Oxford word of the year differs, but the goal of each is the same: To capture society’s mood or ethos over the past 12 months. In keeping with the spirit of these annual pursuits, I’ve come up with my own word to describe the vibe of the 2024 labor market: Stability. Here’s why stability wins the word of the year for me, and why its days as an apt description of the labor market are numbered.
Read more
December 9, 2024
A labor market riddle
This week, economists will try to fit fresh inflation data into the riddle of the year-end labor market. To be successful, they’ll need to square the conflicts of the last jobs report: Strong hiring accompanied by rapid wage growth and slightly higher unemployment.
Read more
