Posted on 02/28/2013 6:08:49 AM PST by mykroar
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, suggesting some traction in the labor market recovery.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 344,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's claims figure was revised to show 4,000 more applications received than previously reported.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected first-time applications to fall to 360,000.
Claims have seen large swings in recent months because of difficulties smoothing the data for seasonal fluctuations, making it hard to get a clear pulse of the labor market's health.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
Has anyone corrected these unemployment numbers to determine what percentage of the actual working population is being laid off at this time? If there are 10% less people working today than there were four years ago, even a reduction in the reported number of newly-unemployed today (which will be revised upward later) could be indicating a worse labor market than a higher number reported in the past.
Check JOLTS data...
CA....
The last time there were ‘furlough’ days, when the budget was settled, ALL the missing money was paid back to the Federal employees. They lost nothing.
The difference is that most employees got a retroactive paid vacation. Essential employees got paid late for work they did. Some old guys in my office said they never got the overtime they worked during the nopay period.
I suspect we’ll see unemployment trending down as more employees are converted to “29ers” and more “29ers” are hired to pick up the slack.
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