February 8, 2012

Jobless Rate Falls to 8.9% as 192K Jobs Added

Today’s jobless report is a good news bad news thing, first the good news… From Bloomberg: U.S. employers added 192,000 workers in February, amid an improving economy and more seasonable weather, and the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined to 8.9 percent, the lowest level since April 2009. So what’s the bad news? In short the primary [...]

Video: The Truth About Our Jobs Crisis

The folks over at Bankrupting America have produced a video and infographic that really puts our  current jobs crisis in perspective: I really can’t add anything here other than pointing you to a rather chilling analysis from Investor’s Business Daily: U.S. Won’t Recover Lost Jobs Until March 2020 At Current Pace. This election is probably [...]

U.S. Economy Loses 95,000 Jobs in September, Unemployment Remains at 9.6%

Stagnation… That’s really the only way to describe today’s jobs report. The U.S. economy shed 95,000 more jobs last month and the number of  underemployed grew by 612,000, and now stands at 9.5 million people: WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. economy lost 95,000 nonfarm jobs in September as local and state governments shed positions at [...]

CNBC: Economy Caught in Depression, Not Recession

I be the first one to admit I’m a pessimist on the economy, but not even I’m this pessimistic: Positive gross domestic product readings and other mildly hopeful signs are masking an ugly truth: The US economy is in a 1930s-style Depression, Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg said Tuesday. Writing in his daily briefing to [...]

Weekly Initial Jobless Claims Rise… Unexpectedly… Yet Again…

This is getting silly, it seems like every time new jobless claims rise the media uses words like “unexpected’ or “surprising” to describe the news… There’s nothing surprising or unexpected about this week’s jobless report, not after reports on plunging new home sales in May, and the sharp drop in consumer confidence. Suffices to say [...]

Initial Jobless Claims Rise… Unexpectedly… Again

Here we go again, another week and another, um, “unexpected” rise in initial jobless claims: The number of new claims for unemployment benefits jumped unexpectedly last week as heavy snows caused layoffs to rise. In addition, many state agencies in the mid-Atlantic and New England regions that process the claims were closed due to the [...]

New Jobless Claims Rise… Unexpectedly… Again…

Here we go again… another week, another “unexpected” rise in new jobless claims: The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance unexpectedly surged last week, while producer prices increased sharply in January, raising potential hurdles for the economic recovery. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 31,000 to 473,000, the Labor Department [...]

Unemployment Rate Drops to 9.7%

I was going to post this yesterday, but there was something about the numbers that just didn’t make sense to me so I decided to hold off until I could dig through the report. Anyway, the Associated Press got to use it’s favorite adverb, “unexpectedly“, again today: The job market is lurching toward improvement. It [...]

First-time Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly… Again

This is getting ridiculous, and as predictable as sunrise… Just how many times can new jobless claims rise “unexpectedly” before the Associated Press realizes there’s nothing unexpected about it: The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, evidence that layoffs are continuing and jobs remain scarce. The [...]

Train Wreck: Retail Sales Fall, Jobless Claims Rise, Foreclosures set Record and the Dollar Crisis

Whew, I can’t believe I got all that in headline! Anyone who has read this blog for any period of time knows I’m a pessimist on the economy, in short I don’t see any reason to be hopeful: Retail sales unexpectedly fell in December, leaving 2009 with the biggest yearly drop on record and highlighting [...]