Unemployment

The impact of Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony – his assessment of the economy and the further accommodation that can be provided to stem economic stresses into next week - will dominate market action into the next week. The G10 currency…

Former Fed nominee and Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond spoke to Bloomberg News about how he sees the economic difficulties the United States faces. His view is that America faces a jobs crisis in the here and now and that deficit reduction is…

This column argues that while Bernanke will want to show that the Fed still has options at its disposal, with various trade-offs associated, perhaps he may want to also underscore the limitations of monetary policy. If current conditions…

Forget about ‘pivoting’ to jobs when right now the President is going to be forced to focus on deficits. The House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has already said he will broker no stimulus and the deficit panel will be in full swing before…

Editor’s note: The US government reported that the unemployment rate fell to 9.1%, with non-farm payrolls at +117,000. That exceeds forecasts. However, the labor participation rate was down to 63.9, the lowest since 1983. People are still…

As Mr Zapatero put it on Saturday, when he announced the date of Spain’s general election, the decision “is in the country’s interest” since from now on there will be certainty, and “certainty is stability”. While it is quite possible that…

Bill Gross was on CNBC yesterday talking about the debt ceiling deal. His first thoughts were about jobs. "There are no jobs in terms of growth. There are no wages in terms of increase… This is a classic de-levering cycle.”

The job cuts are principally in the United States and Europe and the job hires are in the emerging markets. This is a significant shift away from the developed economies, which are mired in a debt crisis to areas of the world which are…

After the US GDP revisions we saw on Friday, it is clear that the US economy is at stall speed. But globally, we are seeing a slowdown in Europe and emerging markets too, especially China. And the fact is monetary and fiscal policy are…

The employment-to-population ratio had been much higher in the US than Europe. This gap narrowed dramatically in the last decade and had almost disappeared by the end of 2009. Draw your conclusions about what this says about the different…