Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Wage & Salary Growth

Transcription

1 May 5, 2014 US Economics Where the Rubber Hits the Road: Wage & Salary Growth Given substantial post-crisis dislocations, measuring the degree of labor market slack has been difficult. While still an important issue, the rubber hits the road with wages and salaries. As the Fed diagnoses the state of the labor market, wage growth is in the spotlight, and improvement will be a prerequisite for raising rates. MORGAN STANLEY & CO. LLC Vincent Reinhart Vincent.Reinhart@morganstanley.com Ellen Zentner Ellen.Zentner@morganstanley.com Ted Wieseman Ted.Wieseman@morganstanley.com John Abraham John.A.Abraham@morganstanley.com Morgan Stanley appreciates your support in the Institutional Investor 2014 All-America Equity Research Team Survey. Request your ballot. Ellen Zentner (New York) Chair of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) Janet Yellen has expressed her deep dissatisfaction with America's sluggish wage growth. Even before her recent comments, the prospects (or lack thereof) for wage growth have been a key focus among Morgan Stanley's clients and investors in general. The goal of this analysis is threefold: 1. To provide the historical backdrop of wage growth in the US; 2. discuss current labor market conditions; 3. and extrapolate the likely path of wage growth this year and next For important disclosures, refer to the Disclosures Section, located at the end of this report. 1

2 How wage growth evolves over the next several years will have important implications for the US growth outlook and the path of monetary policy. An Historical Perspective Adjusted for inflation, slowing wage growth has been a longstanding trend in the US that has been amplified by deep labor market downturns and weak recoveries during the past two business cycles. Indeed, Exhibit 1 illustrates the fairly consistent slowdown in wage growth, by decade, since the 1940s. Exhibit 1: Annual Growth in Inflation-Adjusted Wages and Salaries by Decade Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Morgan Stanley Research There has been no shortage of literature devoted to examining the drivers of slower wage growth. A prevalent explanation for the downtrend is the US transition away from its reliance on manufacturing toward (lower paying) services for job creation. To be sure, data compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reveal a troubling metric - in 2011, the US ranked highest in its share of low paying jobs among developed countries (Exhibit 2). In 2001, the US ranked fifth. Unfortunately, it is likely that the US will continue to dominate the OECD ranking. Since the labor market recovery began in early 2010, we estimate that roughly 65% of net new jobs created have been concentrated in low wage paying industries. Exhibit 2: Share of Low Paying Jobs by Country,

3 Note: OECD defines low paying jobs as jobs in sectors that pay 2/3 the median wage. Source: OECD Employment Outlook 2013, Morgan Stanley Research Measuring Labor Market Slack Several years into the labor market recovery the unemployment rate has fallen from a cycle peak of 10.0% in October 2009 to 6.3% in April The unemployment rate has fallen more quickly than most market participants had anticipated, including members of the FOMC. At 6.3% the labor market may be tighter, but wage growth has yet to pick up meaningfully, so we know slack persists. How much slack, then, is a key question. 1. Using NAIRU (the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment): Central tendency forecasts provided in the March Summary of Economic Projections show that FOMC participants believe the long-term (NAIRU, or natural) rate of unemployment is closer to 5.5%. Our own analysis points to a natural rate for unemployment of 6% (see Potential GDP and Its Implications, 10 March 2014). Both estimates imply that slack in the labor market remains, but the degree of slack is questionable. Which estimate is correct? The ugly truth is that no one can really know for sure where the natural rate for unemployment lies, and as transcripts from 1996 FOMC meetings reveal, Janet Yellen has noted that...it is important to remember that even if we fully accept the natural rate hypothesis, the natural rate is a parameter that not only changes over time but also is very imprecisely estimated. 2. Long-term vs Short-term Unemployment: Fed Chair Yellen often cites metrics on long-term unemployed workers as a sign of labor market slack (see Your Guide to Monitoring the Economy like 3

4 Janet Yellen, 13 February 2014). The share of all unemployed workers that have been out of work 27 weeks or longer has improved but remains extremely high historically (Exhibit 3). Yellen has argued that the high level of long-term unemployment reflects the deep drop in aggregate demand following the financial crisis and would fall appreciably if economic conditions were stronger. Is long-term unemployment a proper measure of slack in the labor market? Recently released high-profile studies offer competing conclusions. In a paper presented at the Brookings Spring 2014 Conference, Kreuger, Cramer, and Cho built on previous work done by economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research that concludes long-term unemployment exerts little pressure on wage growth. Shortly after, Michael Kiley, an economist at the Federal Reserve, released a study concluding that long-term and short-term unemployment exert equal downward pressure on price inflation. At this point, the discussion is inconclusive. 3. An Alternative (Simple) Measure : Simple measures need not be considered inferior. Rather than worry over where the natural rate of unemployment lies or grapple with the influence of long-term versus short-term unemployment, we use a simple method to estimate excess labor. We define excess, or 'shadow labor', as the spread between the broadest unemployment rate (U6) that more fully captures underutilization of labor, and the narrowly defined, official unemployment rate (U3). The relationship between shadow labor and wage and salary growth is depicted in Exhibit 4. For this analysis, we use wage and salary data for civilian workers included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' quarterly Employment Cost Index (ECI) report. As shown in Exhibit 4, shadow labor has improved from a cyclical low of 7.2 percentage points (pp) in 4Q 2009 to 6.0pp in 1Q an improvement of 1.2pp. On the other hand, the unemployment rate has fallen by 3.2pp over that same period, implying that the unemployment rate appears to be overstating the improvement in the labor market. Exhibit 3: Percent Distribution of Unemployment by Duration 4

5 Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Morgan Stanley Research Exhibit 4: Shadow Labor (U6 less U3) vs Wage and Salary Growth Note: The U6 measure of unemployment can be found in table A-15 of the monthly Employment Situation report. U6 includes all workers marginally attached to the labor market, such as part-time for economic reasons and discouraged workers. Source: BLS, Morgan Stanley Research Wage and Salary Growth: Where The Rubber Hits The Road While getting a grip on how much slack remains is important, the rubber hits the road with wages. As slack wanes, pressure in labor markets will reignite pay increases. Recently, wage and salary growth has been sluggish scarcely breaking out of the sideways 1.5 to 1.7% range and an extrapolation of our shadow labor measure implies that wage and salary growth may not break out of that channel until early 2015 (Exhibit 5). Exhibit 5: ECI: Wage and Salary Growth Source: BLS: Employment Cost Index, Morgan Stanley Research 5

6 However, encouraging signs have emerged among smaller companies' compensation practices. According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index, the net percentage of small businesses who have raised worker compensation over the past 3 to 6 months has moved sharply higher and is back to pre-crisis levels (Exhibit 6). The compensation practices of small employers tends to lead broader wage and salary growth. Its continued climb suggests upward pressure on broader measures may emerge later this year (Exhibit 7). Exhibit 6: Net Percent of Small Businesses Raising Worker Compensation Over the Past 3 to 6 Months Source: NFIB, Morgan Stanley Research Exhibit 7: Small Business Compensation vs ECI Wages and Salaries (adjusted for lead-time) Source: BLS: Employment Cost Index, Morgan Stanley Research 6

7 Why Are Wages Important For Growth? For a sizable share of households in the US, personal spending tends to track growth in personal disposable income. Wages and salaries compose the primary source of income for these households, and they tend to save very little. As a result, if you pay them more, they will spend more; pay them less, they'll spend less. Even in the absence of more robust wage and salary growth, as economy-wide hours worked and employment increases, aggregate earnings will grow, and the national consumption figures will improve. Wage Growth in the Context of Monetary Policy Turning back to 1996 FOMC meeting transcripts, Janet Yellen commented that if the Committee began seeing clear evidence of an increase in compensation growth and an uptick in core inflation...i think we definitely will need to respond. Given policymakers' transitioning focus away from labor market slack to signs of price pressures, an acceleration in wage growth is likely on the Fed's list of prerequisites for a rate hike. Janet Yellen has honed her focus on the Employment Cost Index and its disappointing lack of acceleration. Even as the ECI grows from current levels, it is likely to remain far from historically normal for some time - as Exhibit 5 above illustrates. Should the unemployment rate continue to decline with little to no sign of a pickup in wage growth, members of the FOMC will have to come to grips with the grim possibility that job quality, rather than simply labor market slack, has become the dominant factor driving low wage growth. Our discussion of Exhibit 2 above underscores that low job quality has been an enduring feature of the US labor market for some time and has deepened in the current recovery. Bottom Line Going forward, we can simply look to metrics like wage and salary growth to inform on the tightness of labor markets. As the unemployment rate closes in on the level that would indicate a labor market at full resource utilization, wage and salary growth should accelerate. The extent of acceleration is likely to remain historically muted, however, to the extent that lower job quality prevails. Stronger wage and salary growth will likely boost household spending, and that stronger demand should begin to provide impetus to broader price increases. As price increases become apparent, and the Fed is convinced they will continue, policymakers will feel compelled to respond. It seems like a simple process, but it's unlikely to happen any time soon. 7

8 Other US Economics Research Warming Up and Marking Down (May 2, 2014) Student Debt a Drag on the Economy (April 24, 2014) Confused by Yellen's Attempt for Clarity (April 17, 2014) How Big is the Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet? (April 8, 2014) How levered is the US Economy? (April 7, 2014) 8

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