This morning’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics contained much bad news. Despite some promising signs that the economy is improving the national unemployment rate jumped from 9.6 to 9.8 percent.
Non-farm employment increased by only 39,000 jobs, not nearly enough to cover the increase of new More…
This morning, the Department of Labor announced that initial unemployment insurance claims rose to 462,000, an increase of 13,000 from last week’s 449,000, itself revised up from 445,000. The four-week moving average, which smooths out the jumpy weekly data, rose to 459,000.
Two bad pieces of news in the otherwise tepid jobs report.
1. The broad unemployment rate rose 0.4 percentage points. The unemployment rate remained at 9.6 percent in September, but the U-6 rate, a broader measure of unemployment and underemployment, jumped to 17.1 percent. That is the highest rate More…
This morning, the Labor Department announced that the U.S. unemployment rate remained at 9.6 percent in September, reflecting a continued stall-out in the recovery. This is the last major jobs report before the November midterm elections. The unemployment rate has held between 9.5 and 9.7 percent since April. And More…
The number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits fell to 11,000 to 445,000 this week, the Labor Department reported this morning. Economists had expected claims to remain around 455,000. But, alas, it is not all sunshine and roses in the labor market.
Arthur Delaney notes that Congress, when it returns from campaigning and the midterm elections, will only have seven working days to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits before they expire. Last time around, it took 50 working days — more than two months, total:
Congress has blown reauthorization deadlines for extended
The enumerators — the door-to-door Census takers — have long since finished. The final quality assurance representatives, technology specialists, accountants and phone operators are packing up. Contracts are expiring for workers on retainer. Thus, with a whisper, the decennial United States Census is ending.
[Economy1] Washington completes this Constitutionally required More…
Today, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate tracked up in 26 states and the District of Columbia between July and August. Maryland and Florida saw statistically significant increases of 0.2 percent, with slight changes in 25 other states.
Yesterday, the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee — the team of economists that determines whether the economy is contracting (in a recession) or expanding — announced that the recession officially ended in June 2009.
That means little to the 14.9 million Americans out of work, of More…
Some good news from the Department of Labor: initial jobless claims dropped last week, falling from an adjusted 478,000 to 451,000. Still, the number is high, as it has been since January. Weekly claims need to decline into the 300,000s to indicate a drop in the overall unemployment rate.
rss