: National Bureau of Economic Research, March), http://www.nber.org/papers/w25703; Nicholas Bloom, Charles L. Jones, John Van Reenen, and Michael Webb (2020), “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?” American Economic Review, vol. 110 (April), pp. 1104–44. 1  -4largely reversed, leading to the recent declines in productivity, pushing it back toward its pre-pandemic trend. The tight labor market has played a role, as well.
With 1.8 job openings for every job seeker, firms may be using the GDP slowdown as an opportunity to let their hiring catch up to the earlier surge in labor demand. Some firms may even be operating with a larger workforce than necessary in order to hold on to talent they may not have retained in normal times.