Sweet & Sour

Today's release of November's Consumer Confidence Index showed that the labor market remains relatively tight. The percentage of respondents saying that jobs are plentiful remained high at 45.8%. That's still elevated even though it was mostly around 55.0% last year. This series closely tracks the job openings series in the JOLTS report, which will come out tomorrow for October (chart).

The Fed would like to see this series come down sharply to reduce wage inflation. That doesn't seem to be happening according to the latest CCI survey through November.