About this work
National employment indicators increasingly conceal differences across US states. Diverging participation, unemployment and immigration patterns change how labor market slack should be interpreted. Reduced arrivals of foreign workers place uneven pressure on labor supply and distort wage and unemployment signals. These regional differences make comparisons with earlier cycles less reliable and complicate Federal Reserve policy calibration.
Cite this work
Marcello Estevão, Jonathan Fortun (2025). Global Macro Views: Fragmented U.S. Labor Market Masks True Slack. Institute of International Finance.