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The Labor Department has just released its figure for weekly jobless claims. The figure came in at 505,000 in the last week, exactly in-line with the Bloomberg consensus data. This is also exactly the same as the revised figure from a week ago, which was revised from 502,000. The four-week moving average fell by a figure of 6,500 to 514,000, which is the lowest figure in roughly a year. The rest of the data is still less-bad, but far from good.
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Posts related to ‘Labor & Unions’
Jobless Data Trying to Hang in There
Jobless Claims Try to Break 500K
The Labor Department has just reported its weekly jobless claims data. The new preliminary report puts last week’s initial jobless claims at 502,000, down 12,000 on an adjusted basis from the week before. Bloomberg had an open estimate of 512,000. This is one of the lowest readings for 2009, but this figure will actually have to get under 400,000 or a tad higher before it starts halting the rise in unemployment. The army of the unemployed is getting smaller on an official basis as it fell an adjusted 139,000 to 5,631,000.
This won’t halt the rise in unemployment from getting higher than 10.2%, but it is at least getting less bad.
JON C. OGG
Applied Materials (AMAT): We Made Money But You’re Fired
Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) can be added to the long list of American companies that made a profit in the last quarter and then fired a significant part of their workforces. It is a disturbing trend that will make it harder for the US economy to recover.
Applied Materials said it expected its fiscal year sales to be 30% higher. It then let go nearly 1,500 people. Read More
Double-Digit Unemployment… Just How Lagging Is It?
The Labor Department has just reported the unemployment rate and non-farm payrolls data for October. It isn’t pretty. The unemployment rate screamed up into the double-digit territory to 10.2%. The non-Farm Payrolls shrank by a reading of -190,000 versus estimates of -175,000 as the consensus figure.
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Labor Data: Milking More Blood From Stones
We have just seen the weekly jobless claims data, and it gets scary when you consider the readings seen from workforce productivity and unit labor costs. It seems as though employers are driving up output and slashing wages or slashing the overall cost associated with labor.
The Labor Department has just released its weekly jobless claims and that was a drop of some 20,000 to 512,000. This is a head in the right direction if it can continue, but this 500,000 barrier is still just like the sound barrier for the first test pilots after World War II. Bloomberg had consensus economist predictions right at 523,000. Last week’s unrevised data was put at 530,000 and that was revised to 532,000. The army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims dropped again to 5.749 million. The wild card in the continuing claims will be over efforts and approvals made of late to extend the terms of unemployment benefits.
But elsewhere it seems that employers are able to take more blood from the same stones. Q3 worker productivity rose by +9.5%, but the unit labor costs fell by -5.2%. It seems that the companies are able to have the whip-masters patrolling the workplace floors. The question comes down to whether you believe the productivity and costs figures. Either way, that direction cannot continue indefinitely.
JON C. OGG
Did Obama Further Temper Unemployment Expectations?
Today’s market weakness is being attributed to a myriad of issues, with most profit taking being attributed to added valuation after huge gains not meeting up to the current economy. But there have been several other issues to consider with President Obama today saying that the economic gains are not enough and that more is needed… “We are just not where we need to be yet. We’ve got a long way to go, “ said Obama. But more specifically, Obama noted that job losses are likely to continue and called the job growth, or lack thereof, distressing.
UAW Drives Ford (F) Off A Cliff
The UAW rank-and-file rejected a labor pact with Ford (NYSE:F) even though the car company offered each member of the union $1,000 to agree to the deal The No.2 US auto company now has to deal with the bitter fruit of its own prosperity. Ford has done much better financially than its government-supported rivals GM and Chrysler over the last year and has probably picked up market share on every major car company, foreign or domestic, that has a major presence in the American market. Read More
GDP Shows Recession End, Sort Of
The Commerce Department has reported in Q3-2009 Gross Domestic Product figures. We had 3.2% as the official estimate, but Goldman’s drop late yesterday took expectations lower. Bloomberg had consensus at 3.0% for GDP. The headline GDP number came in at +3.5%, above estimates and the first positive figure since the Q2 period in 2008. So unofficially, the recession is over. At least for 9 of every 10 workers in America.
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More Airline Layoffs (LCC, AMR)
If you are often in major airports, it is frankly hard to see how the airline carriers still have pressure compared to six to twelve months ago. The airports and planes are full to the point that when making reservations there are either only middle seats available or you have to get your seat when you get to the airport. But this is also because airlines have cut down their capacity. And with lower capacity comes lower servicing needs. And less servicing creates more opportunities for airlines to fire workers. That is what we are seeing from AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR) and from US Airways (NYSE: LCC).
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Confidence Heads Back South
All of the optimism from Joe Q. Public may be waning if the most recent data from The Conference Board holds up. Particularly as job anxiety keeps mounting. The October reading fell down to 47.7 this month from a revised figure of 53.4 in September. The original report showed September at 53.1. Dow Jones had an estimate of 53.2 and Bloomberg had an estimate of 54.0.
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Jobless Claims Heading Wrong Direction, Again
The Labor Department has just issued its report on weekly jobless claims. The hopes that we’d finally get back under 500,00 were dashed as the claims rose by a revised 11,000 bodies to a new reading of 531,000 for the week. The prior weeks revision went from 514,000 to 520,000, a reading that also went the wrong way. Consensus readings last seen were 518,000 from Dow Jones and 519,000 from Bloomberg.
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Jobless Claims Taming, A Tad
The Labor Department’s report on weekly jobless claims came in at 514,000, slightly better than the estimates of 520,000 from Bloomberg. Thi was based against a prior 521,000 unrevised and based on a 524,000 revised figure. This appears to be the lowest jobless figure since January, but again keep in mind that this figure has to get down closer to 400,000 before the unemployment’s rise will be stopped. The four-week average fell by 9,000 to 531,500. The army of the unemployed measured in the continuing jobless claims actually fell by 75,000 down to a reading under 6 million of 5,992,000.
This figures are hard to celebrate. At least they are not still rising endlessly as we saw during the first half of 2009.
JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 15, 2009
FOMC: Recovery Yes, But High Unemployment For Years
The September Minutes from the FOMC are out and the tone is getting far less cautious and far less negative, despite all the caveats. It also shows that there is some disagreement among members about the size of MBS purchases as well as differing views of inflation. There is a notion that the overall economic outlook improved. As far as asset purchases, members stressed the importance of maintaining flexibility to expand the asset purchases if the economy started to roll back over and the members wanted the flexibility to shrink the repurchases or to scale the programs down if conditions keep improving or improve faster than expected.
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The Surprise in Weekly Jobless Claims
The Labor Department has released its figures for the weekly jobless claims came in at 521,000 versus a revised figure of 554,000 last week (originally reported as 551,000). Bloomberg had a consensus reading of 540,000, so this is going to add more support for the crowd betting on a recovery. The army of the ongoing unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims fell to 6.04 million from a revised level of 6.112 million a week ago. We also saw a drop in the 4-week average to 539,750 claims.
The good news here is that we are now getting closer to the sub-6 million mark. The news is continuing to get less-bad here, but as we have noted these figures need to get closer to 400,000 per week before there will be any meaningful halt to the growth of each month’s unemployment figures.
JON C. OGG
October 8, 2009
Services Sector Back To Growth, At Least Some
The service sector is now back to expanding, even officially, according to the ISM non-Manufacturing data just released. The Institute for Supply Management’s Non-Manufacturing Business Survey came in at 50.9% for September 2009, which is above that 50.0% break-even hurdle between growth an contraction and above the 50.0% that was expected in the Bloomberg economist survey. The highest reading that Bloomberg had noted was 51%. This represents 2.5% higher than the 48.4% reported in August after 11 consecutive months of contraction. Just be advised that it was only 5 of the 18 industries that reported expansion.
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The Great Jobless Recovery
The Labor Department has come out with its weekly jobless claims, and we are still seeing nothing much more than a jobless recovery. The number came in down 12,000 on a revised basis down at 545,000. We had a Bloomberg consensus figure of 575,000 and the prior figure last week was 550,000 on an unrevised basis and went up to 557,000.
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Factory Shifts About To Get Longer?
This morning’s data from the Commerce Department underscores that even a mild return of demand could create a massive relaunch of the United States manufacturing engine without much job growth. The Commerce Department reported that July business inventories fell for the eleventh month in a row. The drop of 1% beat the Bloomberg consensus estimates of -0.9% as inventories fell to $1.33 trillion. The sales were up 0.1% versus a 1.1% gain from June, which is actually the first back-to-back gain seen in 2009.
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Eli Lilly (LLY): America’s Most Stable Companies Keep Cutting Jobs
The rate at which unemployment is growing has slowed recently and is no longer running more than 700,000 jobs lost a month. But, the firings are continuing, even at America’s largest companies, a sign that whatever bright light at the end of the economic tunnel, many firm’s don’t believe it is really there.
Eli Lilly (LLY) said it will let 5,500 people go. At the time of the announcement John C. Lechleiter, Ph.D., chairman and chief executive officer said, “The changes we are announcing today will accelerate the progress of the most exciting pipeline in our history, with more than 60 molecules currently in clinical development.” That gives the impression that management is upbeat about Lilly’s prospects. Read More
Jobless Data Skewed By Holiday
The Labor Department has released its weekly jobless claims and the figure showed that there were -26,000 to 550,000 in weekly claims. The prior week’s initial figure of 570,000 was revised to 576,000. This week is always a a wild card because of the holiday weekend, so do not stack too much into the figures as gospel.
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The Lame Blame on Short-Termism
There is a very silly notion being brought to you by the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program’s Corporate Values Strategy Group and what is admittedly a rather impressive list of names joining it. It is a call to end “Short-Termism” in the financial markets. Imagine a long-term financial utopia where investors did not have to trouble themselves with the day in and day out wranglings of the stock market or the economy.
Imagine if quarterly earnings, monthly same-store-sales, quarterly or annual guidance, key turns in the demand cycle, interruptions or obsolescence of a business model and other issues were just able to be smoothed over. Now imagine investing in this sort of a climate. This idea sounds great on paper and probably looks great on economic models and charts that are the basis for the notion because it goes along with the current theme of thinking for the long-haul and doing what is best for everyone else. The problem is that this is the most silly and perhaps dangerous notion for the public to embrace. This is a path for investors large and small to get drummed, slapped, duped, discouraged and a few other things we decided not to print.
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