Unemployment

Jobless claims came in at 478,000 for the previous week, up from 463,000 the week before. But continuing claims were down 6,000 on the week to 3.720 million from 3.726 million.While the one-week continuing claims number is fine, all…

As we move beyond the market panic, we can zero in on the data that define the economy. Employment is one of four key areas that define the economy -- the others being production, earnings growth and consumer spending.So, jobless claims…

Yesterday, I laid out some of my general thinking on the business cycle and the economy. Obviously, understanding the business cycle is important to economic forecasting and is, therefore, central to personal financial planning, general…

Now that policy makers worldwide have finally stepped in to stop the bleeding, we have had a relief rally of monumental proportions. Most global indices were deep into oversold territory, meaning that there was lots of pent-up demand for a…

After rising from the mid 300s in May and June to almost 500,000 the past few weeks, we have finally seen a break in the claims for unemployment in the United States. This past week, 378,000 people filed initial unemployment claim, down…

This is not a financial sector post but I find it shocking enough that eBay is cutting 10% of its workforce that I had to post this. Now, this could be as unrelated to the current economic malaise as Yahoo's problems and rumored future job…

The unemployment data came out for the month of September 2008 in the U.S. Payrolls fell by 159,000, but the unemployment rate remained the same at 6.1%. The data are consistent with recent weekly unemployment claims data, which point to…

I try to report on these numbers as objectively as possible, but the drip-drip of negative news out of the U.S. starts to wear on you. Jobless claims were expected to drop substantially after the effects of Hurricane Ike wore off. I was…

U.S. jobless claims registered an increase to 493,000, bringing the widely followed 4-week average to 462,500, its highest level since just after 9/11. Recently, the jobless claims numbers have been creeping up indicating the labor market…

U.S. jobless claims registered an increase to 455,000, bringing the widely followed 4-week average to 445,000, its highest level since 2002. Recently, the jobless claims numbers have been creeping up indicating the labor market in the U.S.…