Fidelity’s Director of Global Macro Jurrien Timmer, speaks about central banks, global growth, and wages with respect to job vacancy and unemployment rates in his global macro view episode. With regards to central banks across the globe and their policy responses, Jurrien shares that the responses of central banks he is seeing are different due to the different mandates the banks have. An example he emphasized was the European Central Bank choosing to focus on price stability whereas the United States Federal Reserve chose to have a dual mandate of full employment and price stability. Jurrien also noted that, in his opinion, the Bank of Japan is acting differently compared to the other central banks as they have very large debt stocks to monetize. In terms of global growth, Jurrien believes it will be slowing as China is becoming a drag on the global economy whereas in the past it would be China that would lift the global economy out of a slump. He believes this is because China would increase infrastructure spending and buy up copper & oil, creating a new global capital expenditure cycle. Lastly, Jurrien shares his thoughts on wages and if they can solve the conflicting signals between job vacancy and unemployment. He believes that it is not just a case of wages, but thinks wages are what clears the supply and demand imbalance while noting there are other things going on as well. Follow along with Jurrien’s charts on Twitter: @TimmerFidelity

Recorded on October 25, 2021.

Transcript (PDF): https://www.fidelity.ca/cs/Satellite/doc/transcript_podcast_timmer_25oct.pdf