Initial claims were much better than last week, down 42K to 346,000, not surprising, as last week’s numbers were horrible.
Category: Recession
The Non Farm Payroll Numbers Sucks
Only 88,000 Jobs were created:
American employers added an estimated 88,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, compared with 268,000 in February, according to a Labor Department report released Friday. It was the slowest pace of growth since last June, and less than half of what economists had expected.
It also was the start of a third consecutive spring in which employers tapered off their hiring after a healthy start to the year. Slowdowns in the previous two years could be attributed to flare-ups in the European debt crisis, but this time the cause is less obvious. The recent payroll tax increase or other fiscal tightening in Washington could be partly to blame for the sudden retreat in hiring, but neither seems to be showing up much yet in other relevant economic data.
“People were starting to believe the economy was really picking up steam, and desperately wanted this report to be better,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief economist at MFR Inc. “But that didn’t happen.”
Paul Krugman understands what is causing this:
That deficit has declined from 5.6 percent of potential GDP in 2011 to 2.5 percent in 2013 — that’s 3 percent of GDP, which is a lot of austerity. Not all of that cut has even hit yet — the sequester isn’t in the macro numbers yet — but the rise in the payroll tax is very clearly driving the latest bad numbers, which show big declines in retail.
This is Obama policies that we are talking about largely. Notwithstanding the posturing by Republicans, all they really want is to cut the social safety net and cut taxes for rich guys.
Obama is the one who really wants to cut the deficit in the middle of a recession.
His “Grand Bargain” is all about balancing the budget in the relatively near future while bridging the difference parties.
It is a dangerous delusion.
Sucks
It’s jobless Thursday, and initial claims rose by 28,000 to 385,000, as did the 4-week moving average, though continuing claims fell slightly.
The monthly non-farm payroll numbers come out tomorrow, and I do not expect them to be pretty.
It’s Jobless Thursday!!
Not good. initial claims rose by 16K, with the 4 week moving average rising by 2250, though continuing claims fell.
Of more concern, consumer confidence fell, probably influenced by the sequester.
It’s Jobless thursday!!!
336,000 initial claims, up 2K, with the 4-week moving average falling to 339,750, though continuing claim rose.
Not bad.
It’s Jobless Thursday!
Initial claims, and the 4-week moving average are down, but continuing claims are up a tick.
Not bad.
It’s Jobless Thursday!!!!
Not good news. Initial unemployment claims rose by 20K to 362K, as did the 4-week moving average and continuing claims, though extended claims fell, probably because of exhaustion of benefits.
Of more concern is that the Fed’s Open Market Committee minutes came out, and it looks like they are losing their nerve on quantitative easing:
The Federal Reserve signaled it may consider slowing the pace of asset purchases as officials extended a debate over whether record monetary easing risks unleashing inflation or fueling asset-price bubbles.
Several participants at the Federal Open Market Committee’s Jan. 29-30 meeting “emphasized that the committee should be prepared to vary the pace of asset purchases, either in response to changes in the economic outlook or as its evaluation of the efficacy and costs of such purchases evolved,” according to the minutes of the gathering released yesterday.
This is not the right time for the Fed to take its head off the accelerator pedal.
It’s Jobless Thursday?
The numbers were better than forecast, with initial claims falling by 27K to 340,000, though the less volatile 4-week moving average rose slightly to 352,500, with continuing claims falling to 3.11 million.
Not too shabby.
It’s Jobless Thursday!
366,000 initial claims, down 5000 from last week, and the 4 week moving average fell to a 5 year low, though continuing claims rose. Extended claims were down.
Good, but I’d like to see things a bit better.
Meh
The labor force grew by 157000 jobs in January:
American employers added 157,000 jobs in January compared with a revised 196,000 jobs the previous month, the Labor Department reported on Friday. The unemployment rate was little changed at 7.9 percent, about where it has been stuck since September.
On the bright side, revised government data showed that the economy added 335,000 more jobs than originally estimated during all of 2012, including an additional 150,000 in the last quarter of the year. That was on top of the previously reported fourth-quarter job growth of 603,000 and 2012 growth of 2.2 million.
The higher revisions, in particular, encouraged traders on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrial average over the 14,000-point mark for the first time since 2007.
Still, job growth has been modest compared with previous recoveries, and economists saw little in January’s report to suggest that hiring would pick up soon.
Look at the graph.
The current rate has jobs remaining below trend for over a decade, the best realistic case we see is still a lost decade.
Like I said, “Meh”.
These employment numbers Kung Fu is weak.
It’s Jobless Thursday!
Initial claims spiked last week, with initial claims rising by 38,000 to 368,000, with both continuing and extended claims rising.
Not a good report, but it’s only one, so I’s wait for next week’s report before drawing any conclusions.
Oh Snap!
4th quarter GDP fell by an 0.1% rate:
The federal government helped bring the economic recovery to a virtual halt late last year as cuts in military spending and other factors overwhelmed the Federal Reserve’s expanded campaign to stimulate growth.
Disappointing data released Wednesday underscore how tighter fiscal policy may continue to weigh on growth in the future as government spending, which increased steadily in recent decades and expanded hugely during the recession, plays a diminished role in the United States economy.
Significant federal spending cuts are scheduled to take effect March 1, and most Americans are also now paying higher payroll taxes with the expiration of a temporary cut in early January.
The economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the last three months of 2012, the worst quarter since the economy crawled out of the last recession, hampered by the lower military spending, fewer exports and smaller business stockpiles, preliminary government figures indicated on Wednesday. The Fed, in a separate appraisal, said economic activity “paused in recent months.”
The private sector is recovering, but cuts in federal spending more than offset this.
This is not as bad as what the Germans are doing with the Euro Zone. We are experiencing a sort of “austerity lite”, and it is doing real damage to our economy.
More Agreement With the IMF
They are saying that Britain should back off its austerity policies:
Britain should tone down its austerity plans to help the struggling economy, the International Monetary Fund’s chief economist has suggested.
Olivier Blanchard said the budget in March would be a good time for George Osborne to “take stock” of his plan A.
The comments, in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, came after the IMF trimmed its forecasts for the UK and global growth. The British economy is now expected to expand by 1% rather than 1.1% this year, and 1.9% rather than 2.2% next year.
Twice in a day I agree with them.
Go figure.
It’s Jobless Thursday!
Initial unemployment claims just fell to a 5 year low, as did the 4-week moving average, continuing, and extended claims.
Good news. Let’s hope for more.
We Had a Pretty Good Jobless Thursday
335,000 initial claims, the lowest number in 5 years, with the 4 week moving average falling to 359,250, and continued claims fell to 3.21M, though emergency and extended claims rose to 2.06M.
Pretty good numbers.
Meh
155K jobs created in December, basically running in place, and unemployment stayed at 7.8%
Jobless Claims Drop as U.S. States Tally Data After Break – Bloomberg
350,000 initial claims, pretty good numbers, in what is an atypical week, because of the aftereffects of Sandy, and the Christmas holiday.
Good news, but I’m hesitant in calling a trend.
It’s Jobless Thursday!!!
343K initial claims, one of the lowest levels this year, implying the effect of Super Storm Sandy is fading.
The 4-Week moving average, which is still showing effects of Sandy, fell as well, as did continuing and extended benefits.
Good news.
God Help Us, Berlusconi is Italy’s Best Hope
I know that this sounds like a joke, but I’m as serious as a heart attack.
The Euro (as it is currently structured, it should be called the Reichsmark, because it is structured by Germany to benefit it’s position as a predatory exporter) is of no real benefit to Italy, and Berlusconi is the only credible Italian political figure who is willing to say this:
The nation is richer than Germany in per capita terms, with some €9 trillion of private wealth. It has the biggest primary budget surplus in the G7 bloc. Its combined public and private debt is 265pc of GDP, lower than in France, Holland, the UK, the US or Japan.
It scores top of the International Monetary Fund’s index for “long-term debt sustainability” among key industrial nations, precisely because it reformed the pension structure long ago under Silvio Berlusconi.
“They have a vibrant export sector, and a primary surplus. If there is any country in EMU that would benefit from leaving the euro and restoring competitiveness, it is obviously Italy,” said Andrew Roberts from RBS.
“The numbers are staring them in the face. We think the story of 2013 is not about countries being forced to leave EMU but whether they choose to leave.”
A “game theory” study by Bank of America concluded that Italy would gain more than other EMU members from breaking free and restoring sovereign control over its policy levers.
………
Rome holds a clutch of trump cards. The one great obstacle is premier Mario Monti, installed at the head of a technocrat team in the November Putsch of 2011 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Central Bank – to the applause of Europe’s media and political class.
Mr Monti may be one of Europe’s great gentlemen but he is also a high priest of the EU Project and a key author of Italy’s euro membership. The sooner he goes, the sooner Italy can halt the slide into chronic depression.
The sooner that someone who counts (not Greece, not Portugal, and probably not Spain) declares that the Euro is a failure, and that it needs to be abandoned, the better it will be for most of the people in the Euro Zone.
The Eurobanksters will lose, and Angela Merkel will lose, but the entire Euro Zone, including Germany, is now in recession because of German competitive needs, and German mythology. (it wasn’t the hyperinflation that brought the Nazis to power, it was the hard money contractionary policies, policies that the Germans are demanding for the rest of the EZ that did)
Absent Germany withdrawing from the Euro, the currency is doomed, and the sooner that it is abandoned, the better.
It’s Jobless Thursday?
Initial claims fell by 23,000 to 393,000.
We are still getting too much noise from hurricane/superstorm Sandy, I think that maybe by the 2nd week of December we will be getting good data.