ThinkstockThe recession is not over in several states where unemployment remained well above 9% in March. Against a national rate of 7.6%, these states are locked at levels that still erode state tax income,…
ThinkstockThe Philadelphia Federal Reserve, or the Philly Fed, is out with its monthly report on business for the month of April. As the Business Outlook Survey is a somewhat live reading, we pay attention…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe U.S. Labor Department has released its weekly jobless claims report. After last week’s surprise drop of a whopping 42,000 before revisions, the jobless claims came in at 352,000 for…
ThinkstockStudents with large loan burdens, because of the debt taken on for their educations, likely are not buyers of expensive items such as homes and cars. Perhaps all of their debt makes them less…
ThinkstockThe U.S. unemployment rate continues to tick down, hitting a more than four-year low of just 7.6% in March. In much of Europe, however, the situation is very different. If the latest developments in…
ThinkstockElectronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA) continues to struggle with the fact that its legacy console-based games have lost ground to products that run on smartphones, many of which are free or priced at a…
ThinkstockAmericans are more optimistic about job prospects than they have been in five years. Oddly, the optimism is based on the fact that only 71% of people think it is a bad time to…
ThinkstockWeekly jobless claims from the Labor Department had shown three consecutive increases, but that is now being undone. The weekly claims fell by a sharp 42,000, from 388,000 down to 346,000 for the past…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe most important report about U.S. jobs is not the monthly numbers released by the U.S. Department of Labor, nor the ADP review of private sector payrolls. The Job Openings…
ThinkstockThe wage gap between men and women will not close for 45 years, according to new research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The group found that the wage gap will instead close…
ThinkstockThe real terror of the March unemployment figures was not that the economy added only 88,000 jobs. Much worse than that is the lack of improvement in the situations of those battered the most…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsFriday’s report from the Labor Department is finally here. We had seen lowered expectations ahead of this report due to weaker reports from weekly jobless claims, ISM manufacturing and nonmanufacturing…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsThe U.S. Employment Situation from the Labor Department is looking as though it will be less and less bullish for the markets on Friday. We will get to the predictions part…
ThinkstockThe U.S. Labor Department is out with its final report ahead of Friday’s key Employment Situation report. Weekly jobless claims rose handily and well above expectations. Last week’s figure rose for the third consecutive…
Ed Brown, via Wikimedia CommonsTwo constants dominate most discussions of how a multiyear recovery from terrible unemployment would need to progress. The first is that an historically large number of people who are currently out of jobs…