Weekly Unemployment Numbers Down

The Department of Labor report jobless claims were down last week, as was the four-week moving average.
“In the week ending Sept. 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 530,000, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 551,000. The four-week moving average was 553,500, a decrease [...]

Jobless Claims Fall, but Are We Really Out of the Recession?

For the week ending Sept. 5 , new unemployment claims declined 26,000 to 555,000, according to the Department of Labor.
Does that mean the recession is ending? Unemployment is stabilizing?
One week of unemployment numbers doesn’t make or break an economy, but unemployment as an economic indicator may be showing some signs of stabilization. Maybe. However, many [...]

August Unemployment Numbers and Jobless Recovery

As we follow the weekly economic indicators pretty closely, it’s getting clearer that the overall health of the U.S. economy has hit a bottom of sorts and  is slowly healing, but what that means in terms of the larger employment picture challenges experts, pundits and economists alike.
Labor costs have shrunk for most companies between a [...]

Unemployment… It’s a Drag on Everything

Oh, Unemployment… Can’t you just chill out a little this summer?Apparently not.
This week’s numbers were higher than expected–and higher unemployment is not what anyone needs to hear right now. While the relatively stable July was a good month, the rosy bandwagon from that month is back to what it was — steadily rising unemployment numbers [...]

Weekly Unemployment Figures Seesaw

Watching unemployment figures weekly is like riding a seesaw for too long. Up and down we go, without much thrill or joy from the ride.
The latest weekly government data on unemployment is out, and it appears that the numbers have gone up a bit from July. More people are collecting unemployment this week than anticipated, [...]

Layoffs Decline in July

The latest government employment data is out for July 2009, and the numbers are mostly positive — for the short term.
From the Bureau of Labor Statistics report:
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in July (-247,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The average [...]

Unemployment Rate Rises in June

The weekly unemployment numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor are out, and so are the monthly numbers and view from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (part of the DoL).
The highlights for June 2009 are as follows:

The unemployment rate is 9.5 percent
Payroll declined 476,000
14.7 million people are unemployed
Job losses continue in manufacturing, business and professional services, [...]

Weekly Unemployment Numbers Up

With June almost over, the unemployment numbers for the month are looking a whole lot like May — they’re not great.
This week the story on layoffs and the effect on unemployment insurance is more of the same: Claims are up, seasonally adjusted numbers are up, and the number of folks continuing to collect is also on [...]