Unemployment

By Rick Bookstaber There is a recent story in the New York Times on the growing use of labor-saving robots to increase production efficiency and, by replacing low-cost overseas labor, to return production to our shores. But the operative…

By Marc Chandler In recent weeks, the market had appeared to be scaling back expectations of another round of asset purchases by the Federal Reserve.   US 10-year Treasury yields rose nearly 40 bp since the August 1.  The reconsideration…

Simply cutting the deficit back and cleaning up bank balance sheets won’t get the economy back to growth. Indeed this habit of continually getting behind the curve, and trying vainly now that the economy is spiralling almost out of control…

The 172k rise in July private sector payrolls was well above the consensus forecasts and the best showing in 5 months. Hourly earnings rose 0.1% and the work week was unchanged. After a string of disappointing news this is surely,…

This daily will have to be quick since I am in transit. The best highlight here is jobless claims and how the auto sector is affecting both production and employment positively, potentially keeping the US from falling into outright…

We first noticed the first signs that the economy was beginning to soften about three months ago. Now the evidence of a slowdown has become so overwhelming that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are headed for a recession. We…

I want to highlight three articles on the issue of jobs and full employment because they give one a view of the employment issue from various angles. First is the brief history of unemployment in Britain covering data from 1855. What we see…

Retail sales are at recessionary levels right now, having dropped for a third consecutive month. I need to flag the inventories data that came out this morning in the US as the only thing between us and outright recession.

Scott Barber of Reuters shows us with the chart below that over the last 30 years bad debt in Spain has tracked unemployment and moved inversely with GDP growth. The higher the percentage of doubtful loans is, the lower GDP growth and the…

The US employment report was simply terrible. Adding insult to injury the April was revised lower as well. The dollar initially firmed, but as participants consider the risks of QE3, the upside momentum stalled.