Why American unemployment needs to rise
Lessons from the tightest corner of the country’s ultra-tight labour market
An unemployment problem, as normally understood, occurs when lots of people cannot find work. Northfield, a city in Minnesota with a population of 20,000, exemplifies the troubles that arise at the opposite end of the spectrum: when unemployment is so low that lots of businesses and organisations cannot find workers. Along with Utah, Minnesota has the lowest unemployment rate of any state in America at 2.1%. And in Minnesota, Northfield has just about the lowest unemployment rate of any city, a mere 1.2%.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Hot like Minnesota”
Finance & economics November 26th 2022
- Xi Jinping’s big bang for Chinese stockmarkets
- Western officials need banks’ help to keep money flowing to Russia
- How crypto goes to zero
- Why American unemployment needs to rise
- Where the coming housing crunch will be most painful
- Why Europe is scared of quantitative tightening
- Weather is again determining economic outcomes
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