Unemployment

The data from the most recent Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report are not particularly bullish. Claims are up for the second week in a row, dragging the 4-week average up with them. Year over-year comparisons continue to drop, but…

The Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released this morning, showing a slight increase in initial jobless claims to 558,000. Continuing claims came in at 6.2 million, down from 6.3 million the week before.  All of…

If you recall, at the end of May, I wrote a post “Both initial claims and continuing claims now pointing to recovery” that said jobless claims data were pointing to an imminent recovery.  The general gist of my argument was recovery…

The Employment Situation Summary for July was released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), showing a 9.4% unemployment rate and 247,000 jobs lost in July.  These numbers were better than anticipated, with the unemployment rate…

The US Department of Labor released the employment last data point before tomorrow’s widely anticipated unemployment number comes out. The data showed jobless claims declining to 550,000 from 588,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis. This…

US private employers shed 371,000 jobs according to figures released by ADP today.  Expectations had been for a loss of 350,000. As this report was released two days before the employment situation summary that gives us the…

The US Department of Labor released data showing that 584,000 people filed initial claims for unemployment insurance this past week.  This is up sharply from the upwardly revised 559,000 last week and 524,000 two weeks ago.  The…

Citigroup has just released a forecast which is very troublingregarding employment and growth in the Spanish economy.  With unemployment already having hit 17.9%, Citigroup expects layoffs to increase this to 22% in 2010.  Below…

When last week’s US jobless claims number was released, I indicated it was artificially low because of changes in the summer auto production schedules.  Rather than look at the numbers as they are released from week to week, we should look…

On the surface this week’s jobless claims data look very good. Initial claims came in at 522,000, the best since the first week of the year and pulling the 4-week average below 600,000 for the first time in about six months.  Moreover,…