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Conference Board's Franco Sees 'Positive News' in CCI (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Charlie Public. That's a bloom Bread business flash. You're listening
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  Speaker 1: to Taking stock with Bim Box and Kathleen Hay's on
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Are you feeling a more confident, more upbeat
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  Speaker 1: about the possibility of a raise this year or the next,
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  Speaker 1: more upbeat perhaps about the opportunity to change jobs. Well,
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  Speaker 1: then you might be one of the people that the
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  Speaker 1: New York based Conference Board talked to in their latest survey.
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  Speaker 1: There are a measure of consumer confidence increased to nearly
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  Speaker 1: a one year high. The expectations gauge also climbing present conditions.
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  Speaker 1: It's best treating in nine years. So what is driving
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  Speaker 1: this and can it last? Let's put that question now
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  Speaker 1: to Lynn Franco. She's director of Economic Indicators at the
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  Speaker 1: Conference Board. Lynn, welcome back. Good to be back, Kathleen.
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  Speaker 1: So one oh one point one. That's pretty uh good
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  Speaker 1: beat by the forecaster above the forecast of the highest
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  Speaker 1: since September. So what what's going on here? Well, we've
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  Speaker 1: seen sort of a combination of factors. We had a
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  Speaker 1: nice increase in the present situation component and that's now
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  Speaker 1: at back to pre recession levels, so it's been sort
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  Speaker 1: of a long climb. Expectations also gained some grounds, So
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  Speaker 1: I think overall, consumers are feeling a lot the more
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  Speaker 1: positive about business conditions, employment conditions, UH, and the outlook
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  Speaker 1: ahead is a little bit improved as well. Now let's
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  Speaker 1: go right to one of to me, the most important
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  Speaker 1: parts of this latest report, the Conference Board survey. It
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  Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the labor market. It
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  Speaker 1: seems to pretty well reflect what people are seeing at
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  Speaker 1: work or you know, their their neighbor down the street,
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  Speaker 1: maybe even their own family. And you ask if jobs
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  Speaker 1: are getting more plentiful, if they're about the same, or
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  Speaker 1: they're hard to get and the jobs are plentiful. Response
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  Speaker 1: was pretty good in this report, absolutely climb to twenty
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  Speaker 1: six percent, and that's at the highest level we've seen
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  Speaker 1: since August of two thousand and seven. UH. And also
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  Speaker 1: worth noting is that business conditions good also UM UH
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  Speaker 1: spiked up a bit and that's at levels not seen
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  Speaker 1: since actually two thousand and one. And business conditions tend
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  Speaker 1: to precede employment UM, you know, as conditions have to
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  Speaker 1: improve before employers add more to the workforce. So I
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  Speaker 1: think overall it's pretty good for both, you know, the
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  Speaker 1: economy as a whole and for the labor market. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean two thousand seven, that's right before the UH,
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  Speaker 1: before the crisis started about a year later. It was
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  Speaker 1: before the housing bubble had really bursts. So to be
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  Speaker 1: at that level in terms of jobs are plentiful something
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  Speaker 1: that it seems very significant. However, those claiming jobs are
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  Speaker 1: hard to get also rose. It went from twenty two
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  Speaker 1: point one percent of your respondence to twenty three point
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  Speaker 1: four percent, So if you think about it, yeah, there
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  Speaker 1: the months piece seeen jobs are plenty of well somewhat
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  Speaker 1: outnumbers those who are having a tough time still though
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  Speaker 1: nearly a fourth of the people you talk to think
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  Speaker 1: that it's not that easy to get a job right
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  Speaker 1: now right, And part of that could be that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we're seeing more people now willing to come back into
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  Speaker 1: the labor market, so we get a little bit of
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  Speaker 1: a spike there, But overall, I think that's been holding
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  Speaker 1: at a relatively a good level, and the fact that
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  Speaker 1: we continue to see improvements in business conditions hopefully as
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  Speaker 1: a prelude to even further improvement in the employment picture.
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  Speaker 1: And of course, uh that's also a very important simple
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  Speaker 1: observation that the labor market is very flexible, and people
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  Speaker 1: come and go, and if you don't think you're going
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  Speaker 1: to get a job, then maybe you do just you,
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  Speaker 1: because work live on your savings, you'kick unemployment and then
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  Speaker 1: when you think things are getting better, that's when you say, aha,
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  Speaker 1: I'll start looking at it for another job. But don't
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  Speaker 1: you interview the same group of people for a long time.
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  Speaker 1: Do you find that within your survey that the people
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  Speaker 1: come and go as much as they do from the economy, Well,
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  Speaker 1: it's always a different set of folks every month. But
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  Speaker 1: I think overall it's it's the trend, and I think
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  Speaker 1: the trend has been you know, despite these months to
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  Speaker 1: month fluctuations that the job situation has improved. The percentage
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  Speaker 1: if we go back a few years of people saying
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  Speaker 1: jobs are hard to get has come down significantly. So
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  Speaker 1: while we get sort of these little fluctuations months to months,
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  Speaker 1: overall it's it's quite an improvement from you know, close
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  Speaker 1: to let's say, safety percent almost back at the height
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  Speaker 1: of the Great Recession, who were saying jobs were hard
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  Speaker 1: to get. Buying plans, there's a lot of questions there
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  Speaker 1: when it comes to housing, when it comes to cars,
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  Speaker 1: what did you see in your latest surveillance, Well, we're
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  Speaker 1: seeing that, you know, in terms of intentions to purchase.
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  Speaker 1: Let's saying otto, that's that's holding up pretty well, and
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  Speaker 1: I think that's reflected in what we're seeing in the
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  Speaker 1: other data. A little bit of an uptick in home purchasing.
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  Speaker 1: We know, that's sort of a double sort of prices
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  Speaker 1: have been going up, so that tends to uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: sort of uh, I guess block a few folks from
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  Speaker 1: accessing due to lack of credit and a variety of
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  Speaker 1: other factors. But overall, I think that's positive and that
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  Speaker 1: tends to lead to uh, you know, folks buy more
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  Speaker 1: durables to replenish either what's going in the home or
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  Speaker 1: to you know, sort of furnish new home. So overall,
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  Speaker 1: I think this is a sort of pretty positive news,
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  Speaker 1: and I think overall we might see a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of an uptick in economic growth, hopefully over the next
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  Speaker 1: couple of months. Uh as the condy strongly for the
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  Speaker 1: Federal Reserve to raise interest rates maybe twice this year,
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  Speaker 1: Lune or do you think that might throw some cold
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  Speaker 1: water on consumer confidence and they're concerning confidence about business conditions.
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  Speaker 1: I think the consensus still is that what we might
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  Speaker 1: get one rate hike most likely at the end of
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  Speaker 1: the year, very unlikely that we would get to from
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  Speaker 1: what you've seen in consumer confidence. Do you agree? Do
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  Speaker 1: you think that's a good idea just to do one hike? Um,
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  Speaker 1: I mean spaked into sort of consumer confidence when we
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  Speaker 1: take a look at sort of the you know, uh,
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  Speaker 1: interest rate to expectations. Most people are already expecting that
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  Speaker 1: one hip. I think if we were to have to
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  Speaker 1: that would really attend shock folks, as I think one
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  Speaker 1: is sort of baked in. Two would be an exception. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: might just might just burn that cake around the edges.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Lynn Frankel, thank you so very much. He's
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  Speaker 1: director of Economic Indicators at the Conference Board, talking about
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  Speaker 1: and helping move up in consumer confidence. People's question about
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  Speaker 1: our jobs getting more plentiful. The best bestens just before
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  Speaker 1: the Great Recession. I'm Kathleen Hayes, and this is bloom
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  Speaker 1: Bird Case Shiller. Home price is closely watched in the
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  Speaker 1: economy at the FED to Reserve among home builders, and
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  Speaker 1: they're continuing to rise. Find out why it's not foreign
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  Speaker 1: money that's driving it. That's next on taking stock