This paper evaluates the welfare effects of unemployment insurance in general equilibrium using a life-cycle model.

The Richmond Fed's Community Development team connected organizations on Maryland's Eastern Shore with potential funders during a recent Investment Connection program.

Wage-price pass throughs may help explain why core goods inflation has risen so much faster in the current expansion than in previous ones.

Changes in unemployment appear to be strong recession predictors, especially when combined with lagged term spreads.

Our preliminary findings suggest that, across industries, the decline in job openings may be more related to hiring challenges rather than quit rates.

President Tom Barkin shares how small towns in the Fifth District are putting their best foot forward to attract talent.

Jason Kosakow and Sonya Waddell discuss the expectations of regional and national business leaders about the economy, based on responses to the CFO Survey and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's regional business surveys during the first quarter of 2023.

Two forces may be working against the long-term unemployed in finding new jobs.

Will strong hiring continue in the leisure and hospitality industry?

Unemployment has dropped and is now basically at pre-pandemic levels. Yet labor force participation has been slow to return.

Moves toward stable inflation and maximum employment can be in conflict in the short term.

Some workers may continue to see larger than normal pay increases as wage differentials across sectors revert to their pre-pandemic norms. These increases, however, aren't distributed evenly across sectors.

Sierra Latham and Sarah Gunn discuss the current shortage of teachers nationally and in the Fifth Federal Reserve District, how supply-demand forces have contributed to this labor market gap, and what is happening in response. Latham is a senior research analyst and Gunn is director of economic education at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Married men work substantially more hours than men who have never been married, even after controlling for observables. This Working Paper delves into possible explanations for these results.

Among the topics discussed were income growth volatility, AI's impact on productivity and how housing price changes affect young businesses.

Claudia Macaluso and Sonya Ravindranath Waddell discuss recent challenges in finding and retaining workers, and how businesses have changed their recruitment tactics, adjusted wages, and made other changes in response to these challenges. Macaluso is an economist and Waddell is a vice president and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Results from a recent national Fed survey show that community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and the communities they serve are facing less severe disruptions than last year. Still, staffing and other challenges are preventing CDFIs from fully meeting growing demand for their products and services.

University of Chicago economist on remote work, changes in recruiting, and business startups after the pandemic

In the past few years, job changing in the United States — workers leaving their current employers for new ones — seems to have been on the rise. This development, often called the "Great Resignation," has attracted much attention, but the reasons behind it are far from clear.

Jason Kosakow and Santiago Pinto describe how survey data is gathered and used to assess regional and national economic conditions. Kosakow is survey director and Pinto is a senior economist and policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

President Tom Barkin explores whether labor will continue to be in short supply, and what that could mean for the U.S. economy.

Monetary policy, marriage, college admissions, and discrimination and socioeconomic outcomes were among the topics discussed at our recent conference.

While more than a third of businesses expect to expand their workforce in the coming year, some firms have started to reduce headcount by not replacing outgoing workers. Most businesses would take that approach, or keep employment steady, if demand softened in the near future.

How related are wages and prices, and does the current environment mean such a relationship has changed?

For some underperforming employees, employers might prefer using suspension rather than outright termination.

Pandemic-era unemployment insurance affected recoveries of low-wage job markets and high-wage job markets differently.

The Recompete Pilot Program intends to boost economic competitiveness in selected underperforming areas by dispersing grants to fund proposed infrastructure, workforce, and business development activities.

Over the past year, firms have had difficulty finding workers. Recent evidence from Fifth District business surveys indicates the difficulty is shifting from lower- to higher-skilled hires.

Labor force participation in Maryland and Virginia is down considerably compared to 2019, but different age and gender groups have fallen out of the labor force in the two states.

Data suggest that labor market tightness has meant an increased number of open jobs per unemployed worker and heightened employer recruiting effort per vacancy.

States and school districts are using a variety of policies – including financial incentives – to try to combat a teacher shortage.

A brief review of the development of the Hornstein-Kudlyak-Lange Non-Employment Index, an alternative to the standard unemployment rate that includes all non-employed individuals and accounts for persistent differences in their labor market attachment.

President Tom Barkin explores some of the crucial segments lagging behind in the jobs recovery.

Andy Bauer reviews economic conditions in Maryland, the District of Columbia and West Virginia, based on recent conversations with local contacts and analysis of the data. Bauer is a vice president and regional executive at the Richmond Fed, with responsibility for business and community engagement in these parts of the Fifth Federal Reserve District.

The elevated number of job openings in recent months have been a very stark signal of labor market tightness. But some signs may be pointing to that tightness starting to ease.

How competitive is the U.S. labor market? Answering this question quantitatively is helpful for understanding how wages are affected by labor market power, and thus for understanding how workers will be affected by labor policy choices.

While several indicators have pointed to a recent slowdown in economic activity, one that uses unemployment rates to gauge recession probabilities may offer new insights.

In a world where employers are struggling to find workers, facilitating meaningful work and competitive pay for previously incarcerated individuals could improve economic outcomes both for the individuals and their communities.

How does immigration policy impact economic growth? Do firms that hire more skilled immigrants perform better? These and other questions were addressed during a recent Richmond Fed conference.

Diffusion indexes can help summarize survey responses, but they have some limitations.

Andreas Hornstein and Thomas Lubik discuss their research on changes in the labor market since the pandemic. Hornstein and Lubik are senior advisors at the Richmond Fed.

Standard life-cycle models of portfolio choice suggest that individuals should participate in the stock market throughout their lives. Yet the data show that this is not typically the case early in life.

Numerous factors — including population growth, education, housing, transportation, child care, health, and broadband availability — are shaping the differences in employment outcomes between rural and urban communities.

President Tom Barkin discusses how firms can optimize the hybrid work environment.