Inflation will continue to be a worry and the labor market will soften this year, according to the National Association for Business Economics’ Outlook survey of economists released today.
“The NABE Outlook Survey panel expects inflation to remain a concern throughout 2024,” NABE President Ellen Zentner, chief US economist at Morgan Stanley, said in a press release. “The May forecast calls for inflation to remain elevated at 2.6%, half a percentage point higher than the forecast in the February 2024 survey.”
Survey panelists now expect the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee to cut rates by half a percentage point instead of three-fourths of a point. The cut will also likely take place later than initially anticipated.
In addition, panelists forecast slowing job growth.
“Following the stronger employment growth in the first quarter of the year, panelists now forecast average employment growth to gradually slow through 2024 to 125,000 jobs per month in the fourth quarter of 2024,” NABE Outlook Survey Chair Mervin Jebaraj, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas, said in a press release.
Regarding economic growth, the median forecast for real GDP growth was 2.4% for this year, up from the previous survey in 2024.
“Panelists still anticipate stronger economic growth in 2024 than in previous NABE Outlook surveys, and 90% of them expect a soft landing in 2024,” Jebaraj said. “Economic growth projections are more pessimistic than the Federal Reserve’s economic projections published in March, which forecasted weaker economic growth and higher headline inflation in 2024.”