《经济周刊》就业增长放缓是需求驱动还是供给驱动

Equity ResearchMacroeconomics 15 August 2025 Richard de Chazal, CFArdechazal@williamblair.com+44 20 7868 4489 William Blair Chair Powell’s comments at the press conference for thelatest FOMC meeting highlight one of the biggest chal-lenges for the Fed (and financial market participants) atthe moment—deciding how much of the slowdown in thelabor market is due to a shortage in the supply of workersand how much is due to softening demand. The answer tothis has important, and potentially quite different, impli-cations for monetary policy.In thisEconomics Weekly,we discuss the evidence for each of these cases, withthe view that it is likely a combination of both, requir-ing the removal of policy restrictiveness but little inthe way of stimulus. birthrate, leading to fewer new entrants at the other endof the labor market. The recent shift in the stance on im-migration has also been starting to take a toll. Net immigration into the U.S. over the past four years to2024 has been enormous and has played a significantrole in the pace of both economic growth and inflation.In its latest “Demographic Outlook,” the CBO estimatesnet migration into the U.S. in the four years to 2024totalled 10.3 million, more than 1 million more than the9.2million net migrants who entered the U.S. over theprevious 10 years to 2020 (these figures include theCBO’s estimates of undocumented workers, exhibit 1). So you do not see a weakening in the labor mar-ket. You do see a slowing in job creation, but alsoa slowing in the supply of workers. So you’ve gota labor market that’s in balance, albeit partiallybecause both demand and supply for workers iscoming down at the same pace, and that’s whythe unemployment rate has remained roughly,roughly stable, which is why I said there—we dosee downside risk in the labor market.…. You know,the, the main number you have to look at now isthe unemployment rate, because if it’s true thatthe demand for workers in the form of, let’s call itpayroll jobs, that number has come down, but sohas the breakeven number, kind of in tandem. So,you know, as long as that puts the labor market in,in balance. The fact that it’s getting into balancedue to declines in both supply and demand, though,I think is suggestive of downside risk.… Exhibit 2, meanwhile, shows that most of the employ-ment growth over these years has been for foreign-bornworkers and not native-born. Many might conclude thatthis increase in foreign-born employment has come at theexpense of native-born workers, but that is unlikely to bethe case. You’ve got a very low unemployment rate, and it’skind of been there for a year as job creation hasmoved down, but also we know that because ofimmigration policy really, the flow into our laborforces is just a great deal slower. And those twothings have slowed more or less in tandem. If youlook at things, like I mentioned, quits, look at wag-es—wages are gradually cooling—look at vacanciesto unemployment, those things have been prettystable, they haven’t really moved a lot in a full year.So I think if you take the totality of the labor marketdata, you’ve got a solid labor market. But I thinkyou have to see that there are downside risks. - Fed Chair Powell, 30 July 2025 Supply-Side and the Immigration Factor Labor force growth is in structural decline. This is theresult of an aging population, with baby boomers increas-ingly moving out of the work force, and also a declining William Blair Exhibit 3 shows that the participation rates for prime-aged workers (to exclude the impact from boomersexiting the labor force) for both native- and foreign-borngroups were increasing over this period. Furthermore,the participation rate for native-born workers not onlyrecovered all of the lost ground following the pandemic,but is actually tangibly higher than it was before COVID(and the surge in immigration). This suggests that thesharp rise in the foreign-born employment was largelybecause there were simply not enough native-born work-ers either willing or able to satiate the economy’s strongdemand for labor. Companies over this period continuedto complain about massive labor shortages. What is causing this balancing today is the crucial question. Supply of Available Labor Has Fallen As mentioned earlier, the decline in supply is largelystructural, driven by demographics; however, the poli-cies of both Presidents Biden and Trump have also led toa large decline in the inflows of undocumented migrantsand may also now be starting to result in a lower numberof foreign-born workers overall. Exhibit 5 shows the number of border encounters start-ing to come down sharply beginning in June 2024 (whichis when President Biden closed the southern border in aneffort to improve his reelection campaign). The number ofencounters has continued to fall under President Trump. Indeed, as depicted in exhibit 4, the demand for labor(measured as the sum of employment and job openings)was outpacing the available supply (i.e., the civili