In the ten years following the global financial crisis, the US labour market has largely recovered, with the unemployment rate falling from a peak of 10 per cent in 2009 to 3.9 per cent today, an 18-year low. US firms widely report difficulty finding qualified workers to fill job openings. As in other advanced economies, the US recovery took place after the Federal Reserve undertook extraordinary monetary policies, including keeping interest rates unusually low and quantitative easing bond-buying programmes. While some economists predicted these policies would lead to runaway inflation, the opposite has happened: ... (full story)