Federal Reserve Economic Data

Does it feel like eating out has changed since the pandemic? Restaurants seem busier than ever, yet they also seem to be facing a great deal of staff shortages. Is this borne out in the data?

FRED collects data on both retail sales and employment for different industries. In this post, we compare data for the Food Services and Drinking Places industry, which contains full- and limited-service restaurants as well as bars. The retail sales data come from the Census Bureau and measure the dollar value of monthly sales nationwide. The employment data come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and measure the number of employed persons.

The graph above combines these two series by dividing retail sales (adjusted for inflation) by employment. The resulting line can be interpreted as the dollar amount of sales per employee, which gives an idea of how much the sector is producing relative to how many people are generating that  output. It’s closely related to what economists call labor productivity.

In the decade before the pandemic, this measure was relatively flat in some periods and growing in others, from around $5,700 in 2010 to around $6,500 at the start of 2020. After a big drop during the pandemic, it quickly bounced back, hitting an all-time high of about $7,700 in July 2021. It’s now hovering around $7,300.

The higher levels are driven by both components: a faster increase in real sales combined with employment only just now returning to its pre-pandemic level. The 2020-2021 numbers were at some points certainly above their pre-pandemic trends, but they appear to be moderating. So the graph seems to confirm that restaurants are producing more than they were before with fewer workers, which could be a part of why the industry has changed so much since the pandemic.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for “Retail Sales: Food Services and Drinking Places.” Next, click the “Edit Graph Button” and under “Customize data” search for “Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: All Items in U.S. City Average.” Then click “Add.” It will appear as series (b). Change the units to “Index (Scale value to 100 for chosen date)” and type in “2023-05-01” as the date. Then, under “Customize data” search for “All Employees, Food Services and Drinking Places” and click “Add.” It will appear as series (c). For “Units,” use “Thousands of Persons.” Next, under “Formula,” combine them as follows: ((100/b)*(a*1000000))/(c*1000). This adjusts the sales data for inflation, puts sales into dollars and employment into numbers of persons. Click “Apply.” Finally, set the lower bound of the date to “2010-01-01” in the upper right above the graph.

Suggested by Victoria Gregory.

Who is employed, who is unemployed, and who’s not in the labor force? Data that answer these questions are reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) using the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the US Census. FRED has monthly data on the CPS starting on January 1, 1948, which translates into 906 data points between that date and July 1, 2023. Today, we use that happenstance to celebrate this, our 906th FRED Blog post. Yes, we are that data-nerdy.

Take a look back and you’ll see that the FRED Blog has tapped into many of the 8,449 data series from the Household Survey of the CPS to tell the stories behind those numbers. Here’s a sample, including the FRED graph above for the unemployment rate, the most popular series among them on FRED:

• Civilian Labor Force: Are labor supply and labor demand out of balance?
• Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate: Labor force participation rates of armed forces veterans
• Employment: Employment growth after the macro disruptions of COVID and World War II
• Employment Population Ratio: What’s the story behind who’s working?
• Unemployment Level: Ceasing emergency federal unemployment benefits: A look at the latest state-level data
• Unemployment Rate: Comparing unemployment rates by race: The Great Recession vs. COVID-19
• Not in Labor Force: A greater number of workers still remain outside the labor force
• Labor Force Participation Rate: A closer look at labor in the U.S.
• Multiple Jobholders: Moonlighting in the spotlight
• Duration of Unemployment: The unusual duration of unemployment
• Losers and Leavers: Unemployed Job Leavers: A Meaningful Gauge of Confidence in the Job Market? (from the BLS)
• Earnings: Trying to measure manager vs. non-manager pay
• Entrants and Reentrants: Labor Market Exit and Re-Entry: Is the United States Poised for a Rebound in the Labor Force Participation Rate? (from the Boston Fed)
• Labor Force Status Flows: How labor market flows changed

Stay tuned to the FRED Blog as we continue to tap into the CPS to tell interesting stories about the labor market.

How this graph was created: On the FRED homepage, look for the most popular series and click on the unemployment rate. Click on the first choice.

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

FRED recently added three series on the macroeconomic uncertainty index for the United States reported by Kyle Jurado, Sydney Ludvigson, and Serena Ng. The authors use a set of 132 individual macroeconomic time series to calculate forecasting factors and estimate period-specific measures of uncertainty. More details about their methodology are available here.

The FRED graph above shows the value of that index with three horizons: 1 month ahead (the blue line); 3 months ahead (the red line); and 1 year ahead (the green line). The relative position of the three lines in the graph shows that economic conditions are gradually more unpredictable the further we look into the future. Yet, the same lines become relatively smoother because the more-distant forecasts become  gradually less distinctive. The timing of the peaks and troughs of the data series shows uncertainty is highest during recessions, particularly after economic contractions have been underway for a few months.

The COVID-19-induced recession was an exception because its short duration, dated by the NBER, does not immediately convey its dramatic and broad scope across labor and product markets. At the time of this writing, the uncertainty index has not returned to its much lower and relatively steady pre-recession values at any of the reported time horizons.

How this graph wase created: Search FRED for and select “JLN 1-Month Ahead Macroeconomic Uncertainty.” From the “Edit Graph” panel, use the “Add Line” tab to search and select “JLN 3-Month Ahead Macroeconomic Uncertainty.” Repeat the last step to add “JLN 1-Year Ahead Macroeconomic Uncertainty.”

Suggested by Diego Mendez-Carbajo.