Alan Greenspan Labor Quotations

Until we experience an economic slowdown, we will not know for sure how much of the extraordinary rise in output per hour in the past five years is attributable to the irreversible way value is created and how much reflects endeavors on the part of the business community to stretch existing capital and labor resources in ways that are not sustainable over the long run,

Over most of the past several years, the behavior of unit labor costs has been quite subdued, ... But those costs have turned up of late, and whether the favorable trends of the past few years will be maintained is unclear.

The fact of the matter is, we do not have an unlimited amount of labor, ... the wealth effect cannot persist indefinitely.

At some point, labor market conditions can become so tight that the rise in nominal wages will start increasingly outpacing the gains in labor productivity, and prices inevitably will then eventually begin to accelerate,

The United States is currently in its ninth year of economic expansion, an exemplary accomplishment by any standard. Growth of output has remained vigorous, unemployment is lower than it has been in nearly thirty years, and yet, despite the tautness in labor markets, there have been no obvious signs of emerging inflation pressures,

Despite the tightest labor markets in a generation, more workers report in a prominent survey that they are fearful of losing their jobs than similar surveys found in 1991 at the bottom of the last recession, ... The marked move of capital from failing to technologies to those at the cutting edge has quickened the pace at which job skills become obsolete.

Although layoffs seem to be diminishing, surveys indicate that households continue to be worried about the condition of labor markets,

The likelihood is that we shall be seeing some lower prices on imported goods as a result of the difficulties in Asia, ... But they will not permanently suppress the risks inherent in the tightened labor markets.