Posted on 03/24/2016 8:36:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Thursday's initial jobless claims came in stronger than expected, with 265,000 claims versus expectations of 269,000.
But the truly historic part of the report actually came three weeks ago.
"Today's release also includes revisions of both initial and continuing claims dating back to 2011," Thomas Simons, senior economist at Jefferies, wrote.
"Most of the changes were relatively modest, but the most notable aspect of the revisions is that claims for the week of March 5th (3 weeks ago) were revised down to 253,000 which is, as far as we can tell, the lowest weekly claims figure since November 24, 1973."
Almost all economic data is subject to revisions as the respective agencies collect more information. For instance, quarterly gross domestic product is revised twice after the initial release, and last month consumer credit for December was revised down to a growth of $6.2 billion from the month before after an initial print of $21.4 billion.
Revision or not, Simons finds the claims number to be worth noting.
"Considering population and labor force growth over the past 43 years, this is a remarkable statistic and it continues to suggest that not that much slack remains in the labor market," he wrote in a note to clients.
Simons expects that the continued strength of claims shows that the labor market is "grinding towards full employment."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
More BS!
There does seem to be a tightening in the labor market; however, it appears that the demand is all, or primarily, at the low-end of the skill level. Lot’s and lots of entry and above entry level jobs. Beyond that, not so much.
So yeah, great if you are looking for a food service job, a landscaper job, or something on this order, but there simply are not many jobs beyond that.
RE: primarily, at the low-end of the skill level. Lot’s and lots of entry and above entry level jobs. Beyond that, not so much.
That is the reason for :
1) Stagnant average wages
2) Professionals in their 50’s or early 60’s either retiring early or being forced to accept lower end jobs. American businesses in general has little use for the accumulated skills of older folks.
This clown has to be kidding! How many people currently in the labor force are underemployed (e.g., engineers working in a restaurant) or underutilized (i.e., working 30 h/w because of Obamacare when they want to work 40 h/w)? Pile on top of that the number who have just dropped out of the labor force altogether (Discouraged Worker Effect). This site recently had a mother who's always been on welfare because she gets $1900/mo tax free. Since this idiot took office, my SS payments have risen 0.1% while welfare and other transfer payments have increase almost 31%. Free cell phones for deadbeats? Tell me politicians aren't using my tax dollars to buy votes and then use crappy statistics and idiots like this guy to say things are great. Time to clean house, people.
Bartenders and waitresses don’t replace high paying professional jobs, we are hollowing out our entire labor force. The guys at the top who are reaping the benefits for now will be in the papers tomorrow when they fold because of the deflationary crushing of the economic system from lack of demand.
I'm confused. Is this 1984-style double-speak? Because it makes absolutely NO sense, logically. What am I missing??? Could somebody please explain how the labor market could be "grinding towards full employment"....when the jobless claims are still over 200,000 PER WEEK.
Sure just continue to stop counting people and we can have labor participation rates at record highs
There are surely others here more competent to explain this... Or are you asking a merely rhetorical question?
Because, for a job market as large as America's, a mere 200-300,000 claims is a drop in the bucket - practically equivalent to baseline full employment (after all, in even the most robust labor market, there will always be a tiny fraction of people who just happen to be "between jobs").
Regards,
This is because most companies have already cut to the bone and can’t cut much more before they go out of business.
Over 50,000,000 unemployed.
Except that....that 200,000+ number is per week...right? That means (no math whiz here, but even by my out of practice math “skills”)....about 800,000 to 1,000,000 (1 million) new unemployment claims per month. Right? And compared to the dismal “jobs created” numbers per month, that’s sucky math and ‘in the red’ numbers...any way you figure it.
Again, what am I missing? I’m really perplexed.
Let me put it in perspective:
Every month:
800,000 laid off
600,000 retire
1,000,000 resign
500,000 enter the labor force
2,500,000 get hired
Therefore, 200,000 net new jobs.
This is blatant fraud.
There’s layoffs happening all over the technology sector.
And roughly 10 million per year, or 50 million in five years... so it is obviously invalid / says nothing to simple cumulate these figures.
These figures are useful only in comparison with the comparable figures for a different period of time.
Regards,
What a pantload.
Time for Carrier and Disney and IBM and other companies to ship another couple of thousand jobs overseas so that they can dump more people into the labor pool and keep salaries down.
You have to first have a job to lose it.
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