Free Republic

Should we be alarmed that the number of job cuts announced by large U.S. companies was 35 percent higher in April than it was in March? This is definitely a case where the trend is not our friend. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, U.S. firms announced 65,141 job cuts during April, which represented a massive 35 percent increase over the previous month. And so far this year overall, job cut announcements are running 24 percent higher than for the exact same period in 2015. Meanwhile, on Thursday we learned that initial claims for unemployment benefits shot up dramatically...

Admitting resentment for foreigners getting jobs first gets you government-branded as an unemployed breadwinner bigot. Barreling their way way without their even knowing about it is the term ‘breadwinner bigot’ big government will soon brand all those who resent that some 25.5 million foreign-born people have jobs, while some 94 million and still counting Americans do not. “Since Obama took office the working-age, foreign born population has increased by 5.79 million and the working-age, native-born population has increased by more than 12.41 million. In that same period of time foreign-born people gained 4.08 million jobs while native-born people gained 6.55...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The economy is in the tank. It's confirmed. All the April economic news is out, jobs news and everything. So what does Obama do? Come out and spin it. He's doing a presser or some sort of press availability now at the White House timed exactly to coincide with the beginning of this program, which he is wont to do. Here are the numbers that you need to know: 160,000 new jobs in April, the vast majority of them part time. That is 50,000 below "expectations." The expectations are meaningless. It's a bunch of economic experts that...

Candidate Ted Cruz and candidate John Kasich have officially “suspended” their campaign efforts to win the republican nomination. However, the campaign effort to deliver a resounding win for Donald Trump continues.Yes, a major hurdle has been crossed – Donald Trump is now the last remaining candidate running for the nomination; but that doesn’t mean the push through the last remaining states should be any less important. Every vote counts. Every delegate matters.Anyone who is inclined toward complacency needs only to look at the reaction yesterday by House Speaker Paul ‘Omnibus‘ Ryan and note why it is vital for the...

It appears that the Fed is now officially "one and done" because the only indicator that until recently "confirmed" a "strong recovery", non-farm payrolls, just had a major stumble.  In yet another Goldman jinx which just two days ago boosted its payrolls forecast from 225K to 240K, moments ago the BLS reported that ADP's ominous print was right when it said that April payrolls rose only 160K, far below the 200K expected, and higher than just 1 of 92 economist expectations. This was the lowest print since last September's 145K. Private payrolls rose 171K on expectations of a 195K...

The rap on Donald Trump is he's all bluster. The New York Times says he's offering "incoherent mishmash." GOP rival Ted Cruz claims Trump has "no idea" how to fix the economy. Don't' believe it. The Trump campaign is putting forward proposals to fix problems facing the nation, from the long waits for medical care at the VA to the impending collapse of Obamacare. Check out Trump's economic plan, for starters. Unlike Hillary Clinton's radical anti-business agenda, Trump's plan would actually help unemployed Americans get back to work. Trump slashes the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, down from the...

(Watch the video at the link) Hillary Clinton already has an issue with being truthful, but her latest waffling on coal — and, specifically, coal miners’ livelihoods — has most of the country crying foul. “Instead of dividing people the way Donald Trump does, let’s reunite around policies that will bring jobs and opportunities to all these undeserved poor communities,” Clinton boasted at a town hall meeting in March — immediately, hypocritically, and even jovially following up with this zinger: “So, for example, I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean, renewable...

U.S. companies added jobs at the slowest pace in three years in April, a private survey found, a sign that slower growth and volatile financial markets could weigh on hiring. Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that businesses added 156,000 jobs in April, down from 194,000 in March. Manufacturers shed 11,000 jobs, after losing 3,000 the previous month. Services firms added 166,000, down from 189,000. The slowdown was also driven by weaker hiring at medium and larger companies. Small businesses added jobs at the same pace as previous months. …

Private job creation slowed even further last month as firms added just 156,000 jobs in April, ADP said in a Wednesday report. "The job market appears to have stumbled in April. Job growth noticeably slowed, with some weakness across most sectors. One month does not make a trend, but this bears close watching as the financial market turmoil earlier in the year may have done some damage to business hiring," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, said in a statement. Economists polled by Reuters expected the number to come in at 195,000. In March, private payrolls were revised down...

ith the oil price crash now nearly two years in, there have been some obvious casualties. Dozens of oil related firms have declared bankruptcy, oil service firms have found rig counts collapsed, and thousands of jobs have been lost across the industry with many skilled employees reporting difficulty finding anything more than short-term contract work. Against this backdrop one might have expected a severe economic downturn in Texas, but instead the Lone Star State is holding up surprisingly well. Texas’ economy has long been thought of as being oil driven, but the reality is that the state’s situation is more...

Top 100 H1B Visa Sponsors 2016 Salary is the average salary of all proffered salary on LCA or Form 9035. Sometimes the visa sponsors (employers) does not enter a specific salary, but a salary range. The number of LCA includes renewed, transferred and cap-exempt LCA. Department of Labor(DOL) typically certifies more than 3 times the number of foreign work requests than the number of H-1B visas issued by USCIS.

Students of Austrian business cycle theory are familiar with the term malinvestment. A malinvestment is any poor use of resources or capital, commonly made in response to bad policy (usually artificially low interest rates and/or unsustainable increases in the monetary supply). The dot-com bubble that popped in 2001? The housing bubble that similarly burst in 2008? Those were classic examples of malinvestment.With this article, I'd like to introduce a related term: malincentive. While not part of the official economic lexicon, I consider a 'malincentive' a useful word to describe any promise of short-term gain whose long-term costs outweigh any...

“Carly Fiorina pioneered– pioneered– the practice of outsourcing jobs,” Miller said. “Her great legacy in business has been in finding a way to shift jobs to lower wage countries and replacing American workers with foreign workers. So I think we can all say that Ted Cruz, who supports offshoring jobs, and Carly Fiorina, who supports offshoring jobs, they’re now officially the outsourcing ticket.” “A critical issue for the state of Indiana is steel production and manufacturing,” Miller said, noting that, “on the crucial trade vote in 2015, Ted Cruz voted for Barack Obama’s trade bill that would destroy… the middle...

Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said Monday that adult illegal immigrants should not receive a path to citizenship under an immigration fix, but said she is open to giving their children citizenship. Mrs. Fiorina, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, also said she could support giving those who “have come here illegally and stayed here illegally” legal status. “I think legal status is a possibility for sure,” Mrs. Fiorina said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I think their children maybe can become citizens.”

If nobody is working in one out of every five U.S. families, then how in the world can the unemployment rate be close to 5 percent as the Obama administration keeps insisting? The truth, of course, is that the U.S. economy is in far worse condition than we are being told. Last week, I discussed the fact that the Federal Reserve has found that 47 percent of all Americans would not be able to come up with $400 for an unexpected visit to the emergency room without borrowing it or selling something. But Barack Obama and his minions never bring...

this came by email from uscis@public.govdelivery.com. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services won the overall Igniting Innovation Award Monday at The American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council’s Igniting Innovation Showcase and Award event in Washington, D.C. A panel of government and industry judges selected USCIS as the overall winner for their work with myUSCIS, a service, available in both English and Spanish, that helps people navigate the immigration process. The tool launched in December 2014 and provides up-to-date information about immigration benefits, resources to find citizenship preparation classes and doctors across the country, and tools to help prepare for...

The left-leaning Huffington Post published an article which seems concerned that Donald Trump could defeat Hillary Clinton in a general election contest due to his strong position on trade. In a Friday piece entitled, “Hillary Must Toughen Up On Trade In Case She Is Nominee Against Trump,” Dave Johnson, a fellow at Campaign for America’s Future, writes: If Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee she had better get tough on trade – and mean it. One of Donald Trump’ main elements of appeal to his voters – if not the main appeal – is his stance on...

<p>Yes, there has definitely been an improvement in the labor market since the financial crisis. I am not arguing that point. The financial markets, investors, and analysts eagerly anticipate the release of the employment report each month while the Federal Reserve has staked its monetary policy actions on them as well.</p>

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, hitting its lowest level since 1973, suggesting an apparent sharp slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter could be temporary. While another report on Thursday showed a mild weakening in factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region in April, manufacturers were fairly upbeat about business prospects in the next six months. This, together with labor market buoyancy bodes well for a pick-up in economic growth in the second quarter. "The labor market continues to improve. If the apparent slowing in GDP in the first quarter was truly a...

For the second year in a row, and third out of the last four, being a newspaper reporter ranks as the worst job in America. The Jobs Rated Report has been compiled by CareerCast since 1988, and ranks 200 U.S. jobs based on a wide range of criteria that includes income, outlook, environmental factors, stress and physical demands. Just ahead of newspaper reporter is the job of logger/lumberjack, which finished at number 199 for the second straight year after being dead last in 2014. Another media-related job—broadcaster—came in at number 198, with an equally glum outlook for the future. For...