Macroeconomics
Labor Market
From the Beveridge curve to claims momentum, see how tightness and slack evolve.
Regime:
Tight
Cycle phase
Tight
Labor market remains tight.
Unemployment Rate
4.4%
Prime-age E/P: 80.7%
Openings / Unemployed
0.93x
Prime E/P YoY
+0.2%
3m annualized
+0.0%
Claims trend (13w)
-10.0%
Participation rate: 62.4%
Beveridge Curve
Job openings rate vs unemployment rate with last 10 years of dynamics. Arrow highlights the latest move.
Latest
4.4% unemployment, 0.93x openings ratio
Openings-to-Unemployed Ratio
Prime-age Employment Momentum
Initial Claims Early Warning
Four-week moving average with 52-week high reference. Rising claims often lead payroll slowdowns.
Methodology
How we score labor tightness
Labor data is refreshed directly from FRED as soon as the Bureau of Labor Statistics or Department of Labor publishes new releases. We normalize everything to a month-start timeline so trend comparisons stay apples-to-apples.
Key FRED inputs
- Unemployment rate — Headline jobless rate published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Job openings — Vacancies and vacancy rate from the JOLTS survey.
- Labor force size — Civilian labor force counts to convert rates into the number of unemployed workers.
- Prime-age employment — Share of adults aged 25‑54 who are employed.
- Initial jobless claims — Four-week moving average of weekly claims from the Department of Labor.
Regime vocabulary
- Tight
- Score ≥ +1: unemployment is down at least 0.1 ppt over three months, the openings-to-unemployed ratio is ≥ 1.2, and/or 13-week claims momentum is falling by more than 5%.
- Loosening
- Score between -1 and +1: mixed signals where one indicator is easing but the rest are stable.
- Cooling
- Score ≤ -1: unemployment is up ≥ 0.2 ppt over three months, openings-to-unemployed drops below 0.9, and/or claims momentum is rising more than 10%.
- Cycle badges
- Expansion, Rebalancing, or Cooling are determined by the 7-week slope of the openings ratio versus the unemployment rate (i.e., which direction the Beveridge curve is moving).
Additional context
- Claims are weekly, so regime updates can occur mid-month even when the unemployment rate has not been refreshed.
- Sparkline windows capture the last 36 months; percentile ribbons cover the prior decade so you can compare the current ratio against history.