U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Fall To Four-Year Low

RTT News Global Financial Newswire ^ | 03/22/2012

[SeekAndFind]

(RTTNews) - First-time claims for unemployment benefits showed an unexpected decrease in the week ended March 17th, according to a report released by the Labor Department on Thursday, with claims falling to their lowest level in four years.

The report showed that initial jobless claims fell to 348,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 353,000. The drop surprised economists, who had expected jobless claims to edge up to 352,000 from the 351,000 originally reported for the previous week.

With the unexpected decrease, jobless claims fell to their lowest level since coming in at 347,000 in the week ended March 8, 2008.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at Miller Tabak, said, "Bottom line, the lowest amount of initial claim filers since March 2008 is encouraging, as we've a certain improvement in the labor market."

"Seasonally speaking though, the mild winter impacted seasonal hiring's and firings and thus throughout April and May we'll see how much of the slowdown in job layoffs and improvement in job hiring's was a pull forward," he added.

The Labor Department also said its four-week moving average, which eliminates some of the week-to-week volatility, edged down to 355,000 from the previous week's revised average of 356,250.

Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also dipped to 3.352 million in the week ended March 10th from the preceding week's revised level of 3.361 million.

With the drop, continuing claims fell for the second consecutive week, falling to their lowest level since August of 2008.

[mellow velo]

So there's been a ~ 1.5% improvement in initial jobless claims figures when economists were projecting about a ¼ % worsening? And we're supposed to get all excited over this (particularly given the mild winter)?!

As Derrick Coleman of the NJ Nets once famously said, "whoop-de-d@mn-do"!

[ichabod1]

Don’t count on everybody that can be laid off already having been laid off. It was my turn this month after surviving this nightmare for 3.5 years. I had some interest from other companies as well, which suddenly dried UP as they discovered their earnings estimates were not as good as they had hoped they would be,

[kearnyirish2]

“Don’t count on everybody that can be laid off already having been laid off.”

I’m sorry to hear that it was your turn this month; it is frightening what is happening across the country. Companies are adjusting their salaries down to the “new normal”, and from I’ve seen of people around me employees with similar experience/skills are simply being swapped between companies for lower pay. Anyone I know who lost a job that was fortunate enough to find similar work is earning less by doing it, and in some cases they are hired as temps while being worked as regular full-time employees. Best of luck in your job search.

[Sarah Barracuda]

I hope your right, but there is something that I am very concerned about, more people now want the entitlement society, of “Gimme gimme gimme” they want everything they can get for free without working for it..those are Obama’s people, those are the ones that will show up and vote for him because they want “obama money” and whatever they can get their hands on for free..those are the ones that give me the most worry

[kearnyirish2]

I understand that the grasshoppers will always want the ants’ food, but now the ants have little left and what the grasshoppers are still skimming isn’t filling them (inflated dollars). Without massive increases in entitlement payments, those people can’t gas their cars or take as much home from the supermarket.

People on fixed incomes (social security, pension, welfare payments, etc.) are the hardest hit because the inflation is being deliberately understated to keep those costs down; “Obama’s people”, like many of us, are worse off than 3 years ago. The ones I know are a demoralized lot, publicly praising him while privately wondering what the heck is wrong.

[BooBoo1000]

Just wait until after the Election/ The Unemployment rate will go through the roof. Just as soon as the dust settles in 2013 the power that be will be cutting Unemployment Recipients by the Millions.

[kearnyirish2]

“Just as soon as the dust settles in 2013 the power that be will be cutting Unemployment Recipients by the Millions.”

I don’t know; many people have already run out (hence the rise in food stamps), but our government knows that they can’t have too many people with nothing to lose. Desperate people do desperate things (Obama was elected because his opponent was portrayed as four more years of Bush, under whose watch the real meltdown started), and an increasing number of people without work who have lost their homes truly have nothing left to lose.