The November 2019 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey – Notable Aspects

The November 2019 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey was published on November 7, 2019.  The headline is “WSJ Survey: Economists Split on Causes of Hiring Slowdown.”

I found numerous items to be notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – both within the article and in the “Economist Q&A” section.

An excerpt:

Economists are roughly split over whether the recent hiring slowdown reflects primarily a shortage of workers or softening demand for labor, a sign of continuing uncertainty about the outlook.

In The Wall Street Journal’s latest survey of economists, 45.3% blamed the slowdown on the tight labor market, which has made it harder for many employers to find enough workers. An additional 37.7% of respondents said the issue was ebbing desire to expand payrolls.

As seen in the “Recession Probability” section, the average response as to the odds of another recession starting within the next 12 months was 30.19%. The individual estimates, of those who responded, ranged from 10% to 60%.  For reference, the average response in October’s survey was 34.19%.

As stated in the article, the survey’s 57 respondents were academic, financial and business economists.  Not every economist answered every question.  The survey was conducted November 1 – November 5, 2019.

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Economic Forecasts

The current average forecasts among economists polled include the following:

GDP:

full-year 2019:  2.08%

full-year 2020:  1.72%

full-year 2021:  1.96%

full-year 2022:  1.94%

Unemployment Rate:

December 2019: 3.60%

December 2020: 3.79%

December 2021: 3.97%

December 2022: 4.03%

10-Year Treasury Yield:

December 2019: 1.76%

December 2020: 1.97%

December 2021: 2.29%

December 2022: 2.51%

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Please Note – The above is excerpted from the EconomicGreenfield.com (published by RevSD, LLC) post of November 8, 2019, titled “The November 2019 Wall Street Journal Economic Forecast Survey”

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RevSD, LLC offers the above commentary for informational purposes only, and does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by these outside parties.

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RevSD, LLC is a management consulting firm and strategic advisory that focuses on the analysis of current and future weak(ening) economic conditions, and offers businesses and other entities advice, strategies, and actionable methods on how to optimally adapt to such challenging, complex conditions.