Economist Diane Swonk of Bank One on U.S. Economy and job data.
Lee:
Here are some interesting comments form Swonk of Bank one.
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Fri, 05 Feb 1999, 11:03am EST
Bank One's Swonk on Employment Report: U.S. Economy Comment
Washington, Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Comment from Diane Swonk,
deputy chief economist at Bank One Corp. in Chicago, on today's
report from the Labor Department that the economy created 248,000
new jobs in January, as the unemployment rate was unchanged at
4.3 percent:
''This is an economy with significant momentum,'' Swonk
said. ''Everyone was expecting a slowdown, and now they may have
to revise their growth forecasts up.''
''This data should be reassuring to those who thought we'd
fall off the face of the earth in 1999. It does have some warning
flags in it, but it doesn't push the Fed to take action yet,''
she said.
''Overall we've had the strongest real wage gains last year
since 1952, and labor markets haven't eased. That's not bad in
and of itself, it's bad when it causes inflation,'' Swonk said.
''The jury is still out on that.''
Last year ''was a year of surprisingly good news on
inflation, with commodity deflation from Asia providing an offset
to the increase in wages. This year that's debatable.''
''The Fed will certainly be concerned by these numbers, but
the Fed still appears to be targeting their role as central bank
to the world,'' Swonk said.
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