{"id":175493,"date":"2021-02-04T21:07:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T02:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/02\/04\/more-good-unemployment-numbers\/"},"modified":"2021-02-04T21:07:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-05T02:07:00","slug":"more-good-unemployment-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/02\/04\/more-good-unemployment-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"More &#8220;Good&#8221; Unemployment Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>S<span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">till higher than the preCovid-19 record, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/weekly-jobless-claims-coronavirus-02-04-2021-11612403022?mod=hp_lead_pos3\">initial claims fell to &#8220;only&#8221; 779,000<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">The number of workers seeking unemployment benefits fell for the third straight week, a sign that layoffs have started to ease following an increase in early January. <\/p>\n<p>Initial weekly unemployment claims <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dol.gov\/ui\/data.pdf\">declined to 779,000 last week<\/a>, the Labor Department said Thursday, following a revised 812,000 claims the prior week. <\/p>\n<p>The recent easing in weekly jobless claims\u2014a proxy for layoffs\u2014pointed to a stabilization in the number of workers applying for benefits, though the total remained at a higher weekly level than before a winter surge in coronavirus cases. <\/p>\n<p>Claims also remained well above the pre-pandemic peak of 695,000 and are still higher than in any previous recession for records tracing back to 1967. <\/p>\n<p>The latest jobless claims figures came a day before the government releases a more detailed look at U.S. employment in January. Economists forecast that employers added 50,000 jobs last month, following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/december-jobs-report-coronavirus-2020-11610080447?mod=article_inline\">a 140,000 decline in December<\/a> that marked the first decrease in payrolls in seven months. The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 6.7%. <\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>A separate report showed the pandemic\u2019s effect on worker productivity. U.S. labor productivity fell at a 4.8% annual pace in the final months of 2020, the biggest quarterly decline since 1981, the Labor Department said. In the fourth quarter of the year, worker hours increased at a 10.7% pace and output rose at a 5.3% pace, pushing overall productivity lower. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is why the Democrats need to move quickly to get the stimulus package passed.<\/p>\n<p>The economy is, at best, just treading water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Still higher than the preCovid-19 record, but initial claims fell to &#8220;only&#8221; 779,000: The number of workers seeking unemployment benefits fell for the third straight week, a sign that layoffs have started to ease following an increase in early January. Initial weekly unemployment claims declined to 779,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, following &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[392,458,494],"class_list":["post-175493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-economy","tag-recession","tag-statistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}