Since the end of the recession in 2009 and through the long stop-and-go recovery, the labor market has emerged as one of the most closely watched, not to mention worrying, parts of the economy.
Even as other economic indicators rebounded â€" the stock market, the housing market, corporate profits â€" job growth has been frustratingly slow. More recently, while the overall unemployment rate has fallen, other yardsticks like the participation rate and wage growth have caused concern among economists as well as policy makers at the Federal Reserve.
On Monday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is unveiling an interesting new graphical tool allowing users to study eight aspects of the labor market. Some are familiar, like unemployment, employment, hours and wages. Others are slightly less so, like the labor force participation rate, labor demand and job loss rates.
One new option is an index that tracks the much-debated issue of the mismatch between job openings and skills â€" that is, when employers cannot find workers with the necessary qualifications, despite getting plenty of applicants.
Skeptics argue that the problem essentially comes down to whether employers are willing to pay enough to attract the workers they need; others say there is a genuine shortage of trained workers, especially in skilled blue-collar fields like welding.
The mismatch feature is based on an index developed by economists at the Fed and in academia and was presented in a research report prepared in 2012 and revised last June.
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