unemployment

Unemployment Rises Less Than Expected

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unemployment numbers

Ah, the world of finance, where the rules are made up, and the points don’t matter. OK, I stole that from Phineas and Ferb, but sometimes it fits better than it does even for a fake game show. Today, unemployment numbers were released in which the number of Americans filing for unemployment increased. That means more Americans are jobless than before, despite the so-called worker shortage and the Great Resignation. Don’t forget, you don’t get to file for unemployment when you quit, so these are still Americans who were fired, downsized, let go, or their employer closed. More unemployed Americans is bad, in general, but… Economists were predicting (modeling, similar to what meteorologists do) that there would be even more Americans filing for unemployment, so the fact that more Americans are unemployed, but not as bad as we thought, is good news. Kind of. Check out my review of the new fintech investing apps. The reality is that numerous traders and investors made their trades expecting higher unemployment numbers would push down the price of securities and investments. Since they were wrong, the price of those investments are rebounding. This is “good news” in the world of finance, and a …

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Extra Unemployment Ends

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Here in Colorado several restaurateurs wrote a letter to Governor Jared Polis earlier this summer asking him to join the other states that ended the extra unemployment benefits enacted in response to the global Covid-19 panic. Their theory was that the higher unemployment checks were keeping restaurant workers on the sidelines making them unable to appropriately staff their restaurants. Extra $300 Unemployment Payment Ends Until earlier this month, many recipients of unemployment were getting an extra $300 per week. This is a substantial amount considering typical unemployment benefits are around $400 per week under normal circumstances. Another way to look at is that the $300 per week represents $7.50 per hour when compared to a full-time 40-hour workweek. The restaurant owners concluded that the ability to earn a total payment of approximately $700 per week, or $17.50 per hour as a 40-hour workweek. With numbers like that, it’s no wonder that hard working restaurant jobs paying near minimum wage of $12, or even $13 or $14 per hour would not entice workers to come back. Supporters of the extended benefits looked at the same data and concluded that it is the restaurateur’s own fault for paying such low wages. Who …

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Unemployment Hits 7% for November

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Unemployment numbers for November were released today. The unemployment rate hit 7.0 percent for the first time since November 2008. If your recent economic history is a little fuzzy, that’s right about the time the banking crisis and housing market implosion was a full tilt. In other words, we’ve been over seven percent unemployment since the so-called Great Recession started. I get  a lot of questions about economic news stories. In particular, people want to understand the significance of the various economic statistics that come out better so that they can separate real new from hyperbole. So, let’s take a look at these unemployment numbers and see what the deal is. What Is the Unemployment Range? First, off, it can be hard to overstate how important unemployment (or more accurately, employment) is to the overall well being of the economy. I’ve covered before what makes unemployment numbers so important, so we’ll leave that out for today and focus instead on what is going on here, and why it matters so much. One question I get from time to time is why people get so excited over small movements in the numbers. That’s a good question. It can help to have …

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July Jobs Numbers

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Just a quick update today. After all, it’s Independence Day week and I’m a freelancer, so that’s double time off (without pay). The July jobs data has a slightly unusual split thanks the Fourth of July holiday. The new unemployment numbers were released on Wednesday, a day early because Thursday is a federal holiday, while the hiring numbers will come out on Friday. July Unemployment Numbers The numbers released today are for new unemployment claims. In other words, these job numbers are a measure of how many people recently lost their jobs, not how many people are unemployed, or how many are being hired. Theoretically, you could have a huge first time unemployment number and a huge drop in the overall unemployment rate if a bunch of people were hired and fired over the same time period. In real life, it seldom works that way. So, without reading too much into these employment statistics, the initial jobless claims number dropped by 5,000 to a seasonal adjusted 343,000, which is slightly less than economists were predicting, but by no means any sort of blockbuster drop. Certainly nothing here will make anyone worry about inflation. The uptake is simply that the economy …

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Jobless Claims Continue to Fall

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New unemployment claims fell to a nine month low in October. This trend has been struggling to get going for several months now. However, the possibility of an improving job market is a good sign for the U.S. economy. Update: Consumer sentiment also rose. That is a little bit more good news for the economy. Unfortunately, the news isn’t anywhere good enough to declare an economic recovery. The “good news” about the labor market we have been getting for the last several months means more about the job market bottoming out than it does about it getting better. Essentially, if you were drawing a graph of the U.S. labor market, these last couple of months of good economic news and indicators means you can stop drawing your line down. It does not mean, however, that you can start drawing that line back up. There are two major stumbling blocks now to an economic recovery. The first is the very unstable situation in Europe. What once looked like a problem for a couple of the continent’s weakest economies now looks like a full-fledged crisis for the entire European Union. Any collapse, or loss of faith, there and the U.S. economy will …

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Unemployment Report Bad News for 2011 Economy Recovery

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The November jobs report came in worse than predicted. Recent reports suggesting that consumers were spending more money and that first-time unemployment claims were dropping suggested that the Great Recession might be coming to an end in 2010. Alas, the jobs report shatters that idea for the short-term. A recovery without new jobs isn’t worth the paper it’s statistics are printed on. Ongoing economic recovery requires that not just the people who are currently employed go back to spending and non-fear based economic decisions, but also that more people join their ranks. Unfortunately, that can’t happen if people are not returning to being employed. Smart money decisions will swing from taking advantage of low prices and low interest rates to saving cash. While increasing savings is good on a personal level, it isn’t necessarily good for the economy overall. The possibility that jobless benefits will begin to run out for millions of Americans only adds an additional weight to the overall economy. Put it together with States losing billions of dollars worth of Federal money from economic stimulus programs ending in 2011, and you have a lot of negatives pulling on the first quarter of 2011. The Federal Reserve’s recent …

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