By CB Online Staff
WASHINGTON — The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to the lowest level since July 2008, a hopeful sign that improvement in the job market is accelerating.
The U.S. Labor Department said Wednesday that weekly unemployment claims dropped by 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 407,000 in the week ending Nov. 20. Wall Street analysts expected a much smaller drop.
A Labor Department analyst said weekly claims are volatile during the week between the Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving holidays. A key question is whether claims will remain this low in future weeks, or bounce back.
Still, applications for jobless aid are steadily moving lower. Claims have fallen in four of the past six weeks.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped for the third straight week to 436,000, the lowest since August 2008. That’s a month before the financial crisis intensified with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, worsening the recession.
The improvement can’t come fast enough for frustrated jobseekers. Applications for jobless aid need to stay below 425,000 for several weeks to signal that hiring is accelerating, economists say.
For the first 10 months of this year, claims mostly fluctuated around 450,000 until they began dropping in late October. They fell steadily last year from a peak of 651,000 in March 2009.
Applications for unemployment benefits, while volatile, are a real-time snapshot of the job market. They are a measure of the level of layoffs and indicate whether companies are hiring.
Strong job gains have been slow to materialize this year, even as the economy grows at a modest pace. Earlier this month, the Labor Department said private employers added a net total of 159,000 jobs in October, the most in six months.
Still, the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 percent for the third straight month. And the economy needs to generate roughly twice that many jobs per month to rapidly reduce unemployment.
But the economy isn’t expanding quickly enough to generate large numbers of jobs. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the July-September period. That’s weak compared to previous recoveries from steep recessions.
The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that it doesn’t expect the economy to expand much faster anytime soon. It forecasts the economy will grow by 3 percent to 3.6 percent next year, and unemployment will still be between 8.9 percent and 9.1 percent by the end of 2011.
The number of people continuing to claim unemployment aid, meanwhile, fell by 142,000 to 4.18 million, the lowest in two years.
That doesn’t include millions of people receiving extended benefits under an emergency program set up by Congress during the recession. Nearly 4.7 million people received extended benefits during the week ending Nov. 6, the latest data available. That’s down by more than 260,000 from the previous week.
Puerto Rico saw the highest unemployment rate for the week ended Nov. 6 at 5.8 percent, followed by Alaska at 5.7 percent and Oregon at 4.3 percent.
Still, Puerto Rico’s jobs scenario appears to be finding some much-needed traction as the island grapples with a fifth year of recession.
Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate fell to 15.8 percent in October after edging up the previous month, according to island Labor Department statistics.
The rate was down from the 16.3 percent registered in September and slightly lower than the 15.9 percent unemployment of October 2009. The jobless rate in October 2006, when Puerto Rico’s lingering recession was taking root, was below 11 percent.
The modest decrease in October was the second straight drop in unemployment on a year-over-year basis. The 16.3 percent jobless rate in September was up from the 16.1 percent registered in August but slightly lower than the 16.4 percent unemployment of September 2009.
However, the improved jobless rate may be skewed by the dismal labor participation rate in Puerto Rico as frustrated job seekers have given up their searches amid the marathon local recession.
A total of 1.094 million people were working in October, an increase of 11,000 over the previous month. However, there were 24,000 fewer people with jobs last month compared to October 2009.
The labor participation rate rose to 42 percent in October, up from 41.8 percent in September. Still, it remained lower than the 43 percent rate registered in October 2009 and far below the U.S. average of 64.5 percent.
There were 205,000 unemployed people in Puerto Rico in October, which was 5,000 fewer than the previous month and 7,000 fewer than in October 2009. Unemployment rolls track only those people who are actively seeking work.
Despite an unemployment rate that remains far above the national average, improvements on the job front helped the local Economic Activity Index (EAI) published by the Government Development Bank (GDB) gain ground in September after posting three straight months of declines.
The turn to positive ground was driven by a 1.1 percent increase in payroll employment, a solid swing from the 1.2 percent drop in August. September’s payroll employment numbers resulted in the lowest year-over-year rate of decline (2.3 percent) since December 2008.
Total payroll employment in Puerto Rico rose to 922,000 jobs in September. The services sector continued its improving trend, adding 12,000 jobs that month. Private sector employment reflected the lowest rate of decline since September 2007, according to the EAI.
All other EAI components showed declines in September, including cement sales, down 1.9 percent; gasoline consumption, which dropped 0.3 percent; and electric power consumption, which dropped 2.6 percent.
State highlights from U.S. Labor Department report
Below are the states reporting the biggest changes in unemployment claims. The figures are for the week ended Nov. 13, one week behind the national data:
States with the biggest drops in claims:
California: Down 5,044, due to a holiday-shortened government workweek and fewer layoffs in services
Pennsylvania: Down 4,494, due to fewer layoffs in the construction, services and furniture industries
North Carolina: Down 2,685, due to fewer layoffs in construction, services, and textiles
Texas: Down 2,632, due to a shorter workweek and fewer layoffs in services and transportation
Wisconsin: Down 2,416, no reason given
Georgia: Down 2,257, due to fewer layoffs in construction, services and manufacturing.
New Jersey: Down 2,062, due a shorter workweek and fewer layoffs in transportation and warehousing
State with the largest increase:
Indiana: Up 2,094, due to layoffs in the auto industry
Retrieved from http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=51066&ct_id=3
A Labor Department analyst said weekly claims are volatile during the week between the Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving holidays. A key question is whether claims will remain this low in future weeks, or bounce back.
Still, applications for jobless aid are steadily moving lower. Claims have fallen in four of the past six weeks.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped for the third straight week to 436,000, the lowest since August 2008. That’s a month before the financial crisis intensified with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, worsening the recession.
The improvement can’t come fast enough for frustrated jobseekers. Applications for jobless aid need to stay below 425,000 for several weeks to signal that hiring is accelerating, economists say.
For the first 10 months of this year, claims mostly fluctuated around 450,000 until they began dropping in late October. They fell steadily last year from a peak of 651,000 in March 2009.
Applications for unemployment benefits, while volatile, are a real-time snapshot of the job market. They are a measure of the level of layoffs and indicate whether companies are hiring.
Strong job gains have been slow to materialize this year, even as the economy grows at a modest pace. Earlier this month, the Labor Department said private employers added a net total of 159,000 jobs in October, the most in six months.
Still, the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 percent for the third straight month. And the economy needs to generate roughly twice that many jobs per month to rapidly reduce unemployment.
But the economy isn’t expanding quickly enough to generate large numbers of jobs. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the July-September period. That’s weak compared to previous recoveries from steep recessions.
The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that it doesn’t expect the economy to expand much faster anytime soon. It forecasts the economy will grow by 3 percent to 3.6 percent next year, and unemployment will still be between 8.9 percent and 9.1 percent by the end of 2011.
The number of people continuing to claim unemployment aid, meanwhile, fell by 142,000 to 4.18 million, the lowest in two years.
That doesn’t include millions of people receiving extended benefits under an emergency program set up by Congress during the recession. Nearly 4.7 million people received extended benefits during the week ending Nov. 6, the latest data available. That’s down by more than 260,000 from the previous week.
Puerto Rico saw the highest unemployment rate for the week ended Nov. 6 at 5.8 percent, followed by Alaska at 5.7 percent and Oregon at 4.3 percent.
Still, Puerto Rico’s jobs scenario appears to be finding some much-needed traction as the island grapples with a fifth year of recession.
Puerto Rico’s unemployment rate fell to 15.8 percent in October after edging up the previous month, according to island Labor Department statistics.
The rate was down from the 16.3 percent registered in September and slightly lower than the 15.9 percent unemployment of October 2009. The jobless rate in October 2006, when Puerto Rico’s lingering recession was taking root, was below 11 percent.
The modest decrease in October was the second straight drop in unemployment on a year-over-year basis. The 16.3 percent jobless rate in September was up from the 16.1 percent registered in August but slightly lower than the 16.4 percent unemployment of September 2009.
However, the improved jobless rate may be skewed by the dismal labor participation rate in Puerto Rico as frustrated job seekers have given up their searches amid the marathon local recession.
A total of 1.094 million people were working in October, an increase of 11,000 over the previous month. However, there were 24,000 fewer people with jobs last month compared to October 2009.
The labor participation rate rose to 42 percent in October, up from 41.8 percent in September. Still, it remained lower than the 43 percent rate registered in October 2009 and far below the U.S. average of 64.5 percent.
There were 205,000 unemployed people in Puerto Rico in October, which was 5,000 fewer than the previous month and 7,000 fewer than in October 2009. Unemployment rolls track only those people who are actively seeking work.
Despite an unemployment rate that remains far above the national average, improvements on the job front helped the local Economic Activity Index (EAI) published by the Government Development Bank (GDB) gain ground in September after posting three straight months of declines.
The turn to positive ground was driven by a 1.1 percent increase in payroll employment, a solid swing from the 1.2 percent drop in August. September’s payroll employment numbers resulted in the lowest year-over-year rate of decline (2.3 percent) since December 2008.
Total payroll employment in Puerto Rico rose to 922,000 jobs in September. The services sector continued its improving trend, adding 12,000 jobs that month. Private sector employment reflected the lowest rate of decline since September 2007, according to the EAI.
All other EAI components showed declines in September, including cement sales, down 1.9 percent; gasoline consumption, which dropped 0.3 percent; and electric power consumption, which dropped 2.6 percent.
State highlights from U.S. Labor Department report
Below are the states reporting the biggest changes in unemployment claims. The figures are for the week ended Nov. 13, one week behind the national data:
States with the biggest drops in claims:
California: Down 5,044, due to a holiday-shortened government workweek and fewer layoffs in services
Pennsylvania: Down 4,494, due to fewer layoffs in the construction, services and furniture industries
North Carolina: Down 2,685, due to fewer layoffs in construction, services, and textiles
Texas: Down 2,632, due to a shorter workweek and fewer layoffs in services and transportation
Wisconsin: Down 2,416, no reason given
Georgia: Down 2,257, due to fewer layoffs in construction, services and manufacturing.
New Jersey: Down 2,062, due a shorter workweek and fewer layoffs in transportation and warehousing
State with the largest increase:
Indiana: Up 2,094, due to layoffs in the auto industry
Retrieved from http://www.caribbeanbusinesspr.com/news03.php?nt_id=51066&ct_id=3
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ReplyDeleteCon mucho respeto Maribel Laboy