Economic outlook: jobs, Fed, housing recovery

The week ahead is framed by three macro threads that are increasingly pulling against each other: a Federal Reserve that is debating how restrictive policy still is, a labor market that continues to cool beneath the surface, and a housing market that’s showing pockets of improved affordability – but transaction volume that remains weak against a fragile confidence backdrop. We’ll start with a heavy lineup of Fed officials on the speaking circuit. But the bigger signal will come from a delayed jobs report, January existing home sales, and the CPI report. The labor market is cooling — and the openings vs. job seekers picture has flipped A useful way to summarize the shift is to compare the balance of job openings and job seekers at the peak of the boom versus now. In late 2025, there were more job seekers than job openings. In fact, by December there were about 16% more unemployed workers than available openings – a meaningful change from the post-pandemic peak. In April 2022, by contras