Fox Business says about the April jobless figures for Spain:

Almost 5 million Spaniards were registered as unemployed in April, data showed, as their prospects of finding work in the country with the European Union’s second highest jobless rate deteriorated further.

The number of registered jobless fell by 0.91 percent, or 46,050 people. But those gains were mainly down to restaurants and hotels gearing up for the holiday season, and in seasonally adjusted terms the number rose by 17,663 from March, Monday’s labor ministry data showed.

“The figure shows the continued weakness of the labor market and of the Spanish economy. It’s not compatible with the (government’s forecast) of a stronger economy in the second quarter of the year,” Jose Luis Martinez, a strategist at Citi in Madrid, said.

Over the year, on a seasonally adjusted rate, compensation rose by 1.8%, wages and salaries rose by 1.6% and benefits rose by 1.9%. Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.3%.

As far as the error is concerned, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said:

BLS has discovered an error in the benefits data for March 2013 primarily affecting private industry benefits data for sales and office occupations. As a result, benefits estimates for March 2013 have been temporarily suppressed for sales and office occupations found in tables 3 and 12 of this news release. Other benefit and compensation data may also be affected by this error.

This report is unlikely to move the needle for the stock and bond markets this Tuesday, compared to other earnings and data. So far we have the S&P 500 futures down almost two points and DJIA futures are up one point.

FULL EMPLOYMENT COST INDEX REPORT

On Wednesday we have seen that TrimTabs Investment Research estimated that job growth for March was 156,000. That is up from its 100,000 job growth February estimate, but the report shows that actual job growth is significantly weaker than the Labor Department reported in the first quarter and not enough to reduce the rate of unemployment.

At 8:15 a.m. comes the ADP Employment Report, and that is expected to by 205,000 in new payrolls.

On Friday we get the formal report, and those estimates are 193,000 in nonfarm payrolls, but that includes government workers. The private sector payrolls are expected to have grown by 200,000, and the formal unemployment rate is expected to come in flat month-over-month at 7.7%.

It is always interesting when you see public sources accusing data of not looking quite as it seems. Jack Welch called the numbers a blatant lie ahead of the election. TrimTabs did not quite go that far, but that are warning that the job growth so far has been overreported.

It was just yesterday that Germany downgraded its own annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth, from 0.8% expected at the end of 2012 down to growth of only 0.3%. With Germany being the top economy in Europe, we could not help but propose that if Germany is lowering its GDP outlook for the full 2013 then this was probably a downgrade for the whole of Europe as well.

France is the second largest economy in Europe and is the second most stable of the original entrants, or at least that is how the theory works in size. The Category B and Category C job seekers in France also rose to 1.519 million in February with a B-class being down 0.1% and C-class up 1%.

In total, the number of job seekers registered came to 4,706,700 in France in 2013, an increase of 0.6% in February. Year over year it increased by 9.8%.

President Francois Hollande sold the public that higher taxes on the wealthy and cutting the degree of austerity on benefit payments and other austerity cuts were all going to solve their situation. It has not worked, and barring a miracle it will not and cannot work. The wealthy are leaving and the employment situation is worse.

If Hollande wanted to really help out labor, he should have just proposed trying to pass a law making it mandatory for companies to hire workers even if there was no work. The French companies would have of course revolted, but it would have at least been a real effort to drive employment and it would have been an honest admission of the situation.

Somehow it does not work when you hit the wealthy with higher taxes. They don’t exactly just decide to become patriotic and hire to the point that they pay the public until they are not wealthy. They just leave. The biggest problem with socialism is that ultimately you run out of other people’s money to tax.

Last week’s claims figure came in up by 2,000 to 336,000. Bloomberg had a consensus estimate of 340,000 and a range of 325,000 to 352,000. Last week’s preliminary report of 332,000 was revised to 334,000.

As far as what is happening here, we recently saw a larger-than-expected nonfarm payrolls and private sector payrolls report. We are also one week past what was previously reported as the second lowest number of jobless claims since the recession started.

Another measurement comes from the continuing jobless claims, reported with a one-week lag. This is what we call the army of unemployed, and the number came in 3.05 million. Last week was the closest it was to being less than 3 million that we have seen since the recovery started.

We were hoping for better news today, but investors should not take today’s numbers as bad news. The reality is that on is own this data should have very little impact on the futures this morning. DJIA futures remain up about 12 points and S&P futures are up about 0.25 points.

24/7 Wall St. wants you to pay close attention here. This should be a wakeup call to anyone with a 401K, ESOP, IRA, pension fund, or other form of retirement fund. It will sound like an exaggeration that much of the American public is basically facing bankruptcy at retirement. Let the figures speak for themselves.

The 2013 Retirement Confidence Survey is actually not much worse than the prior report, but it is truly a low point for the future of America. The EBRI is signaling that the percentage of workers confident about having enough money for a comfortable retirement is essentially unchanged from the record lows observed in 2011. Having a statistical precision of plus or minus 3 percentage points should not sway any opinion that this is a future retirement crisis.

While more than half expressed some level of confidence (13% are very confident and 38% are somewhat confident), some 28% are not at all confident (up from 23% in 2012 but statistically equivalent to 27% in 2011), and 21% are not too confident.

Translation: Only 13% of those who are going to retire are very confident about their retirement, while 28% are admitting that they are not confident at all that they will have enough assets at retirement.

If you are looking for any good news, at least there are 51% who are somewhat confident or very confident. The results were unchanged for a financially secure retirement with only 18% saying they are very confident and some 14% who said that they are not at all confident.

Another sad figure is that only 46% of those surveyed confirmed that they and/or their spouse have tried to calculate how much money they will need to have saved by the time they retire so that they can live comfortably in retirement. Also, only 2% of workers and only 4% of retirees identified “saving or planning for retirement” as the most pressing financial issue facing most Americans today.

As far as the cause, the primary reason cited (41% of responses) for not contributing (or not contributing more) to their employer’s plan was the cost of living and day-to-day expenses eating up funds. Too much debt was another citation as 55% of workers and 39% of retirees reported having a problem with their level of debt.

Beware the next recession whenever it arrives. Only half of those surveyed, broken out as 50% of workers and 52% of retirees, said that they could definitely come up with $2,000 if an unexpected need arose within the next month. The thought that only half of working or retired Americans can come up with $2,000 within the next month is not just scary. This is alarming.

The Retirement Confidence Survey was conducted in January 2013 by 20-minute telephone interviews with 1,254 individuals (1,003 workers and 251 retirees) who were aged 25 and older using random digit dialing along with a cell phone supplement to obtain a representative cross section of the U.S. population.

We read through much of the data in the full PDF report and it is really nothing short of alarming. Forget about the fact that the media uses the word “crisis” way too often. With this having been conducted in January, the effect of the payroll tax holiday expiring was by and large not yet felt by Joe Public. We have also since then seen that nearly two-thirds of those who are soon to be at retirement age are likely to postpone retirement. Keep in mind that the bulk of the investing public just missed out on four or five years worth of retirement savings.

Last October we showed which states had the most residents whose were the most and least prepared for retirement.

FULL EBRI REPORT

24/7 Wall St. has a message for its readers, and we cannot say this loud enough. If you do not have any form of retirement account set up at all, you better get off your duff and get started saving for your retirement right now! Government handouts for free food and unemployment are not going to last forever, and the US National Debt Clock has just gone above $16.7 trillion as of March 19, 2013. We do not really want to hear about any of you being forced to eat pet food in what should be your golden years.

Please take note of this warning as it is no joke. We really mean it.

We already expected an uptick in prices on the wholesale level from the Producer Price Index due to higher energy costs. The headline figure rose by 0.7% in February, versus 0.2% in January, and Dow Jones was calling for estimates of 0.7%. The core reading, which takes out food and energy, came in with a gain of 0.2% in February. That core reading was 0.2% in January and it was expected to be only 0.1% for February according to Dow Jones. We would go on and on about the big uptick in the headline wholesale inflation, but the reality is that it was obvious. considering that energy prices were on a rampage at the time.

The weekly jobless claims is where the somewhat good news is. Weekly claims fell by 10,000 to 332,000, versus a Dow Jones and Bloomberg expectations of about 350,000. So sequestration did not crush the numbers. The prior week’s claims were revised upward by 2,000 to 342,000. The army of unemployed, measured by the continuing claims with a one week lag, fell by 89,000 to 3,024,000.

Today’s weekly jobless claims is better than expected, but the PPI reading should have been seen from about 10 miles away. S&P futures are up three points and the DJIA futures are up 27 points. Keep in mind that the DJIA is now up nine days in a row and is trying to go to 10 days.

The BRT said, “CEO economic expectations increased for the first time in four quarters. BRT CEOs also expect 2.1 percent growth for 2013, a slight increase from last quarter’s estimate of 2.0 percent.”

Jim McNerney, who is head of Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) and the chairman of Business Roundtable, said, “The relatively smaller improvement in the outlook for hiring, however, may reflect ongoing uncertainty and a wait-and-see attitude about the business climate in the United States, as agreement on the nation’s debt and budgetary issues remains elusive.”

Today’s survey release was up in the first quarter of 2013, to 81.0 from 65.6 in the fourth quarter of last year, and is back to the its highest level since the second quarter of 2012. The current index is at about its long-term average level of 79.2.

The BRT survey was completed between February 11 and March 1, 2013, and responses were received from 144 member CEOs for a 69% participation rate in the BRT survey. Here is a snapshot:

Today’s data confirms an improving employment environment. There is a warning though about sequestration, though. The Trends Index said, “However, even though the labor market has gained in recent months, the looming sequester is likely to slow the pace of job creation in the near term.” Positive index contributions were seen in seven out of the eight components.

The rising indicators in order of largest positive contributor to the smallest were as follows:

• Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to Fill Right Now
• Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales
• Industrial Production
• Employees Hired by the Temporary-Help Industry
• Ratio of Involuntarily Part-Time to All Part-Time Workers
• Job Openings
• Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance

While housing construction added more than 17,000 jobs in February, one surprise boost came from some 20,800 jobs added in the motion picture and sound recording industries. Those $12 movie tickets must help a lot. Another 16,000 of the added payrolls came from temporary help services. The one figure that stood out above and beyond any rational explanation was that the good old U.S. Postal Service somehow added about 4,500 more workers.

The U.S. Postal Service continues to lose money as it is bleeding cash to keep paying retiree pensions and benefits. So can someone please manage to explain how the USPS added jobs at a time that Saturdays are being dumped for delivery days? The USPS had some 603,100 workers in January and somehow rose to 607,600 workers on a seasonally adjusted basis in February. A gain of 4,500 jobs might not sound like much to a government pencil pusher, but it sure does to those of us taxpayers who do not really believe that taxpayers aren’t ultimately on the hook for the ”independently funded” Postal Service.

While the USPS reported a quarterly loss of $1.3 billion back in early February, the one area of growth was a 4.7% growth in Shipping and Packaging. No wonder the Postal Service is going to continue package deliveries on Saturdays. First class mail continued to decline and the Postal Service’s effort to cut first class mail delivery on Saturdays may save as much as $2 billion. So, this begs a couple questions. Does the Post Office need more workers to handle more and more catalog mailings or junk mail? Didn’t all the partisan mail-outs for donations end in November as well?

The USPS loss announcement in February also said that the first quarter is traditionally the Postal Service’s strongest financial quarter due to the holiday mailing and shipping season. Maybe that explains the hirings with a lag of some sort. The problem there is that the first quarter is actually the fourth calendar quarter and it ends on December 31 and the added payrolls were for February.

Needless to say, we wanted an answer of how the payrolls at the USPS grew by 4,500 people in February. So, we placed two calls to spokespeople and are awaiting an answer about how the 4,500 jobs were added. We did speak with two USPS contacts on Friday, but so far the explanation remains unanswered. If we get a response we will update this article.

This situation is one true head-scratcher at a time that budgets are supposedly tightening up. As we have no way to know what the boost is from until an answer is offered up, we chose a theoretical $30,000 per year for each of these 4,500 positions knowing that it may be higher. That comes to an extra $135 million per year from a group that is losing money. This $135 million figure may even be much higher when you consider insurance, pensions, and other benefits. It also does not include the added expenses that come with each new hire.

Saving a theoretical $135 million here and there is not going to save the Postal Service, and it is not going to save the out-of-control deficit spending that Washington D.C. is addicted to. That being said, a few hundred or a thousand instances of this sort of savings is what it will take to get government spending in line with real budgeting. Of course, the government hasn’t operated on a budget for years now.