IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedlrv/103053.html

Drivers of Wage and Employment Growth in Recent Years: A Supply and Demand Decomposition

Author

Listed:
  • Maximiliano Dvorkin
  • Cassandra Marks

Abstract

Understanding whether labor market developments stem from supply or demand forces has fundamental implications for the conduct of monetary policy. This article develops a structural vector autoregression (VAR) methodology to decompose U.S. employment and wage growth into supply and demand components using sign restrictions. Extending Shapiro 2026, we separately identify trend growth, current shocks, and past shocks across different industries. Results reveal that goods-producing sectors experienced strong demand-driven growth in 2022, which subsequently weakened as Federal Reserve tightening took effect. Service sectors showed robust demand through 2023, but by 2025, supply-side factors—likely due to immigration policy changes—became dominant. We validate our shock identification by linking estimated demand shocks to financial dependence measures during monetary tightening and supply shocks to immigration flows. These findings highlight the asymmetric nature of post-pandemic labor market rebalancing and underscore the importance of distinguishing supply from demand forces for appropriate monetary policy calibration.

Suggested Citation

  • Maximiliano Dvorkin & Cassandra Marks, 2026. "Drivers of Wage and Employment Growth in Recent Years: A Supply and Demand Decomposition," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 108(4), pages 1-16, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlrv:103053
    DOI: 10.20955/r.2026.04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/2026/apr/recent-wage-and-employment-growth-supply-demand-decomposition
    File Function: Landing page
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.stlouisfed.org/-/media/project/frbstl/stlouisfed/publications/review/pdfs/2026/apr/recent-wage-and-employment-growth-supply-demand-decomposition.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.20955/r.2026.04?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam Hale Shapiro, 2026. "Decomposing Supply‐ and Demand‐Driven Inflation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 58(2), pages 365-388, March.
    2. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-673, September.
    3. Brinca, Pedro & Duarte, Joao B. & Faria-e-Castro, Miguel, 2021. "Measuring labor supply and demand shocks during COVID-19," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    4. Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia & Camilo Morales-Jimenez, 2026. "Model Perspectives on Supply and Demand Factors behind a Soft Labor Market," FEDS Notes 2026-01-30-2, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Hee Sung Kim & Juan M. Sanchez, 2017. "Financial Conditions: Do the Ups and Downs Affect the Rest of the Economy?," The Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 25(1).
    6. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March.
    7. Christopher J. Waller, 2024. "Getting Closer: A speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri., July 17, 2024," Speech 98557, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    8. Adam Hale Shapiro, 2022. "How Much Do Supply and Demand Drive Inflation?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 2022(15), pages 1-06, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Szafranek, Karol & Szafrański, Grzegorz & Leszczyńska-Paczesna, Agnieszka, 2024. "Inflation returns. Revisiting the role of external and domestic shocks with Bayesian structural VAR," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PA), pages 789-810.
    2. An, Lian & Kim, Gil & Ren, Xiaomei, 2014. "Is devaluation expansionary or contractionary: Evidence based on vector autoregression with sign restrictions," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 27-41.
    3. M.S.Rafiq, 2006. "Business Cycle Moderation - Good Policies or Good Luck: Evidence and Explanations for the Euro Area," Discussion Paper Series 2006_21, Department of Economics, Loughborough University.
    4. Corsi, Fulvio & Longo, Luigi & Cordoni, Francesco, 2025. "SVAR identification with nowcasted macroeconomic data," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    5. Carlo A. Favero, 2007. "Model Evaluation in Macroeconometrics: from early empirical macroeconomic models to DSGE models," Working Papers 327, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Andrew Binning, 2013. "Underidentified SVAR models: A framework for combining short and long-run restrictions with sign-restrictions," Working Paper 2013/14, Norges Bank.
    7. Tito Belchior Silva Moreira & Benjamin Miranda Tabak & Mario Jorge Mendonça & Adolfo Sachsida, 2016. "An Evaluation of the Non-Neutrality of Money," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-20, March.
    8. Vladimir Filipovski & Taki Fiti & Borce Trenovski, 2016. "Efficiency of the Fiscal Policy and the Fiscal Multipliers – The Case of the Republic of Macedonia," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 3-23.
    9. Helmut Lütkepohl, 2013. "Vector autoregressive models," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 6, pages 139-164, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Giancarlo Corsetti & Luca Dedola & Sylvain Leduc, 2008. "Productivity, External Balance, and Exchange Rates: Evidence on the Transmission Mechanism among G7 Countries," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2006, pages 117-194, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Vargas-Silva, Carlos, 2008. "Monetary policy and the US housing market: A VAR analysis imposing sign restrictions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 977-990, September.
    12. Valcarcel, Victor J. & Wohar, Mark E., 2013. "Changes in the oil price-inflation pass-through," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 24-42.
    13. Lütkepohl, Helmut & Netšunajev, Aleksei, 2015. "Structural vector autoregressions with heteroskedasticity: A comparison of different volatility models," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2015-015, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    14. Dées, Stephane & Zimic, Srečko, 2019. "Animal spirits, fundamental factors and business cycle fluctuations," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    15. Martha Elena Delgado-Rojas & Hernán Rincón-Castro, 2017. "Incertidumbre acerca de la política fiscal y ciclo económico," Borradores de Economia 1008, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    16. Emanuele BACCHIOCCHI & Riccardo Jack LUCCHETTI, 2015. "Structure-Based SVAR Identification," Departmental Working Papers 2015-11, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    17. Amengual, Dante & Fiorentini, Gabriele & Sentana, Enrique, 2024. "Specification tests for non-Gaussian structural vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 244(2).
    18. Bernardino Adão & Sandra Gomes & Laura Alpizar, 2025. "On how to assess the impact of monetary policy," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles and Banco de Portugal Economic Studies, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    19. Caroline Jardet & Alain Monfort & Fulvio Pegoraro, 2009. "New Information Response Functions," Working papers 235, Banque de France.
    20. Benhima, Kenza & Poilly, Céline, 2021. "Does demand noise matter? Identification and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 278-295.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedlrv:103053. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Scott St. Louis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.