Immense Pain in Jobless Claims
The Labor Department just delivered the weekly jobless claims and the numbers are startling even if seasonality is a large issue in January as retailers and transport companies trim back on their holiday temporary hires. The figure rose by 51,000…
Dow Jones and Bloomberg both had estimates of 405,000.
The four-week average rose by 15,750 to 428,750 jobs and the army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims rose by 94,000 to 3.991 million.
Four states reported increases due to weather, and the normal seasonality issues were an obvious impact here. Still, a rise by this much hurts the morale of those looking for the long overdue jobs recovery. The report might not constitute a double dip recession fear, but this is just staggering and will take away from the belief that jobs are meaningfully recovering even if they are recovering here and there.
There is a saying that says, “The beating will continue until morale improves.” In this case, morale has nothing to do with it. The beatings continue.
JON C. OGG
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Jon Ogg has been a financial news analyst since 1997. Mr. Ogg set up one of the first audio squawk box services for traders called TTN, which he sold in 2003. He has previously worked as a licensed broker to some of the top U.S. and E.U. financial institutions, managed capital, and has raised private capital at the seed and venture stage. He has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as New York and Chicago, and he now lives in Houston, Texas. Jon received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance at University of Houston in 1992. www.247wallst.com.
