Archive

December 16, 2025
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US: Noisy November After Reopening

  • US private payroll growth stayed steady through the government shutdown. Statisticians failed to collect much data for November, yielding a noisy surge in unemployment.
  • The employment-to-population ratio is steady, as are job openings and layoffs. Churn is still low, with few quits or hires, but broad resilience appears to remain unbroken.
  • Jobless claims are also stable into December, when headline data should improve. The Fed pre-empted bad news with past cuts and is unlikely to keep going in January.

By Philip Rush

December 16, 2025
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UK: LFS Strengthens Policy Division

  • Doves and hawks on the MPC will find support for their views in the UK labour market data. It should strengthen divergent views in December, not resolve disagreement.
  • Another rise in the unemployment rate and a shocking spike in redundancies can feed dovish fears that activity in the labour market is breaking into disinflationary weakness.
  • Hawks can see another round of upwards revisions to wages, driving surprise persistence again. Total pay’s trend is stable in recent years, and regular pay is sticking too high.

By Philip Rush

December 09, 2025
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China Re-rooting Rather Than Dumping

  • China’s rising export growth to Europe in November demonstrates base effects around a steady trend that predates US tariff increases. It isn’t about dumping.
  • Avoidance measures remain rife, with transhipping through Vietnam not dented by the provisions in their US trade deal. Effective tariff rates aren’t rising belatedly.
  • Profit-maximising companies still seem to be working around US measures, keeping the impact on inflation and growth smaller than many other economists feared.

By Philip Rush

December 04, 2025
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BoE Survey Says Stagflation Survives

  • CFOs keep telling the BoE their prices will rise by 3.5% in 2026, with wage increases similarly substantial. There has been no significant break lower in over 18 months.
  • Employment plans have also deteriorated, lending some support to the dovish case as well. But this side is an unreliable signal, while inflation has proved brutally accurate.
  • Doves need the employment aspect to be true, but the transmission to prices not to be. This survey signals upside inflation risks that should discourage rate cuts in 2026.

By Philip Rush

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