It will be especially important to evaluate incoming information to assess whether the recovery is picking up as improvements in the labor market feed through to consumer and business confidence; or, conversely, whether the headwinds that have impeded the recovery to date continue to restrain the pace at which the labor market and economic activity normalize.
The challenge of long-term unemployment Discussions of the labor market at this juncture necessarily have a “glass half-empty or halffull” tone. Recent improvements are encouraging, but, as I have noted, in an absolute sense, the job market is still far from normal by many measures, and millions of families continue to suffer the day-to-day hardships associated with not being able to find suitable employment.