And, once again, we are seeing some pretty good news, with initial claims falling slightly again, with the 4-week moving average, continuing claims, and extended claims falling as well.
It’s good news.
It’s time to look at the employment/population ratio now.
Yesterday, we saw the best number for initial jobless claims in 3½ years, dropping to 366,000, with the 4-week moving average dropping to 387,750, though continuing claims rose marginally, and extended claims jumped by almost 10%.
Still, overall, this is good news, particularly when juxtaposed with the fact that inflation is still nowhere to be seen, though the “very serious” central bankers are still chasing that phantom.
And the news is actually pretty good, with initial claims falling to the lowest level since February, 381,000, with the less volatile 4-week moving average falling to 393,250, and the continuing and extended claims fell as well.
Definitely good news. If we maintain this for the next 4 weeks or so, I’ll believe that this is neither an outlier or an artifact of misused correction factors.
.
Yeah, I’m a glass half full kind of guy
And at first glance, they look pretty good on balance with the unemployment rate (U-3) falling below 9% for the first time since this March. (The more broadly defined U-6 fell as well)
Of course, the falling unemployment rate was largely the result of a decline in people looking for jobs, the increase in the non-farm payroll of 120K is less than the (roughly) 175K increase needed to accommodate natural growth in the labor force. (Private payrolls were pretty good, but state and local payrolls continue to hemorrhage)
I would still say that this more good than bad news, as are the latest ISM factory numbers, which point to continued growth.
On the other hand yesterday’s initial unemployment claims were back over 400,000.
It’s better, but we are still firmly in lost decade territory.
Well, the last thing didn’t work out, so I am looking for a job.
Basically, one of the rules of thumb is that November and December are pretty dead, particularly after Thanksgiving.
I’m not sure why, but since the first week of November, things, at least those things that are presented to me by recruiters, are on a fairly sharp upswing.
I’m not sure why this is so, and it could be that my experience is an outlier.
And they suck wet farts from dead pigeons.
80,000 new jobs on the NFP when natural growth in the labor market requires something like 175K, and while the jobless rate fell to 9.0%, that’s because people are stopping looking for jobs.
It’s not a time for half-measures.
And initial claims are below 400,000 for the first time in over a month, with the less volatile 4-week moving average falling slightly from 406,500 to 404,500, continuing claims falling by 15K to 3.68M, but extended and emergency claims rose by 39.9K to 3.68M.
The number is still too damn high. This is still too high to presage any sort recovery in the job market.
Tomorrow’s monthly jobless figures from the DoL should give us some more detail.
In this case, it’s Michelle Bachmann’s entire campaign in New Hampshire just quit on her:
Staff members in New Hampshire for Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann have resigned en masse, a Republican familiar with the situation said on Friday, in a fresh blow to her 2012 hopes.
The Republican had few details, but news reports in New Hampshire said the resignations included her New Hampshire campaign manager, Jeff Chidester.
Bachmann, campaigning in Iowa, sowed some confusion by saying she was unaware of the resignations.
Manchester’s Union Leader newspaper said Chidester, a conservative activist and radio talk show host, left due to frustration with Bachmann’s national campaign, not with the candidate herself.
Bachmann has a long history of churning through staff the way that Rush Limbaugh churns through Oxycontin.
This is a not unexpected development.
And initial claims are again just marginally better, 404,000 down from last week’s adjusted 409,000, which is still too damn high.
Actually, it’s worse than it sounds, because they adjusted last week’s numbers were adjusted up from 405,000, (isn’t it always the way?) so it’s really a negligible drop.
What’s more, continuing claims rose, though emergency claims fell, probably as people hit 99 weeks.
We are not anywhere near a recovery.
And the initial claims numbers are basically flat, which is still too high for a meaningful recovery, with the 4-weeking moving average and continuing claims numbers falling slightly, but extended and emergency claims rose.
When juxtaposed with the non-farm payroll numbers for September being over 100,000 less than is needed to accommodate natural growth in the labor force, this is not good news.
And initial claims are back above 400,000, with the 4-week moving average rising, though continuing and extended claims fell.
Recovery my ass.
And while initial claims fell a bit, with the 4-week moving average rising, and continuing and extended claims both falling.
Still it’s 423,000 which is far short of a recovery.
On the other side, you have the Leading Economic Indicators beating estimates, but a lot of that was driven by an increase in the money supply as investors moved to (safer) cash from other less liquid investments.
Not only do I expect unemployment to remain above 9% for the foreseeable future, I expect it to top 10% again at some point in 2012.
Because Meg Whitman just became HP’s CEO.
Whitman’s claim to fame is her sting at eBay, where she made lots of acquisitions, most of them ill-starred. (Skype and their contentious stake in Craiglslist anyone?)
After HP’s disastrous acquisition of Compaq, and a string of management failures at the top, since their hiring of an outsider (Carly Fiorina), they have continued to bring in sales weasels for what is a technology driven company.
You know, maybe the company wouldn’t be flailing if the people running it actually understood the company, as opposed to stroking their own egos.
Seriously, there is no level of failure that will make one of the members of the CEO class unhirable.
I am home, and I am both completely wiped, and famished.
Interviews tend to leave me tired, but the hunger is a new one.
I’ll know something in the next week.
I have a job interview tomorrow afternoon.
Perhaps I can avoid a stint of unemployment this time around.
And not only were the numbers worse than expected, but they are the worst numbers since June, with claims closing by 11,000 to 428,000, with the 4 week moving average rose by 4,000 to 419,500, though continuing and total claims both fell slightly.
We are not in a recovery, as the latest Philadelphia Fed’s Survey of manufacturing showed, with the numbers indicating contraction.
Why people aren’t running around like their hair on fire over this, I do not understand.
With initial claims worse than forecast, with an increase to 414,000 initial applications, with the 4 week moving average rising as well, though continuing claims fell slightly.
When you look at this, and a weak Beige Book from the Fed, and the fact that there were absolutely no jobs created in August, the idea that we are in any sort of recovery is laughable.
We’re in a deflationary spiral, and the already inadequate stimulus has been on the down slope for over 6 months, and somehow or other people believe that the austerity fairy will solve things, when it’s actually going to make it worse.
But I think that there are times when they do provide a window into what someone is going to do.
Case in point, all signs indicate that Barack Obama will be singing the praises of a program called “Georgia Works” in his jobs speech on Thursday.
The program is best described as, “sending out jobless Americans on meager unemployment compensation stipends to work for free,” which.”tries to turn unemployment insurance into a kind of sing-for-your-supper ‘workfare” program.”
And there is also the fact that the program does not work:
According to data from the Georgia Department of Labor provided to the Huffington Post, just 16.4 percent of workers who participated in this program between 2003 when the program started and 2010 got hired by the company where they were placed, and only 24 percent got jobs at all. Currently, exactly 19 people are enrolled.
Obama’s characterization sounds more like Danish or Swedish active labor market policy, where government subsidizes serious retraining and then subsidizes wages. But the Georgia program, now run by a very right-wing Republican state administration, is a far cry from that.
Georgia’s top weekly benefit is just $330.
With unemployment stubbornly above 9 percent, and above 15 percent if you count discouraged workers and part-timers seeking full-time work, this program doesn’t make a dent in the problem. It doesn’t create jobs. It simply alters who gets available jobs, while putting downward pressure on wages. As Obama’s suggests, Smith gets his foot in the door ahead of Jones, by offering to work for free.
Why would Obama be interested in such weak tea?
First, there is no additional cost to government.
Second, it has a nice corporate, free-market flavor.
Third, it appeals to Republicans. Obama is fearful that Republicans may block the next extension of unemployment insurance, and this Republican-style embellishment might be part of a bipartisan deal.
Basically, it’s internship as slavery, which is expanding on the private level, and will now appear to have state sanction.
So, how does Obama’s ethnicity factor into this? Well, unlike most Americans of Sub-Saharan extraction, Barack Obama is not descended from slaves, rather, he is descended from slave owners, so he might have a rosier view of slavery as a way of addressing unemployment.
And initial claims are back above 400,000 this week, though the week moving average and continuing claims fell.
It’s really crappy, and in a sane world people in power would be freaking out about this.
So much fun, let me tell you.
Still acting on rumors, but it’s best to hit the ground running, particularly in this economy.