Assessing Maximum Employment : A Flow-Based Approach

The Federal Reserve's dual mandate, to achieve maximum employment and stable prices, requires monitoring a broad range of indicators and carefully evaluating the trade-offs between these goals. We propose a flow-based framework to evaluate real-time shortfalls from maximum employment, focusing on unemployment and participation cycles. This approach highlights that employment stability--driven by improved job-finding and reduced job-loss rates--is the primary factor behind procyclicality of participation, rather than labor force entry. Moreover, we show that cyclical recoveries in participation are bound to lag those in unemployment--even during fast recoveries. We link unemployment dynamics to price stability by estimating a New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) using data on labor market flows, prices, wages, and inflation expectations. Our findings suggest that the natural rate of unemployment, u*, rose significantly following the pandemic, reflecting declines in job-filling rates, reduced matching efficiency, and a persistent increase in workers' real reservation wages. The model interprets the recent disinflation episode as a soft landing through rising expectations of a weaker labor market coinciding with the FOMC's tightening cycle. This observation emphasizes the forward-looking nature of inflation dynamics