Longer Labor

In another sign the labor market is tightening, average overtime in October and November was 4.5 hours/week, tops since mid-2014; up substantially from 4.2 during the first five months of 2017. Back in 2014, OT was elevated out of a fear the economic recovery would stall. Now, there simply aren’t enough people to hire. For example, in November there were 210,000 job openings in construction, up from 178,000 in 11/16.