Take a good look at the headlines, and you’ll be excused for thinking that we’re back in 1979. The late Carter years are remembered as the time of ‘stagflation:’ high inflation, high unemployment, fuel shortages, and a general malaise. So far, we’ve seen fuel shortages and gas station lines across the Southeast, rising commodity and housing prices, and unemployment ticking up even as the number of job openings increases.

Weighing in from investment firm Goldman Sachs, chief economist Jan Hatzius believes that the current worrisome numbers are a short-term phenomenon.

“I think that it’s quite plausible that employers may be prioritizing post-pandemic hiring over seasonal hiring to some degree that then shows up as weaker numbers. That’s still going to be with us, I think, for the next couple of months. But the flip side should be stronger job growth numbers than we previously thought later in the year," Hatzius noted.

Turning to inflation, Hatzius again outlines a better picture for the long-term: “Ultimately, it’s going to be more temporary. A lot of the drivers of inflation, not just the commodity numbers, but also things like the base effect and some of the impact of reopening on service prices… a lot of that is pretty short-term. It doesn’t really tell you a lot of inflation in 2022 when we think we’ll probably be back to about 2% for core PCE.”