Posted on 05/07/2015 7:30:50 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Initial jobless claims rose slightly last week from a 15-year low while planned layoffs surged in April to a three-year high, providing mixed signals about the health of the labor market ahead of Friday's jobs report.
About 265,000 people applied for first time unemployment benefits in the week ended Saturday, up from the previous week's 262,000, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Economists had expected claims to rise to 280,000 after hitting the lowest level since 2000 the previous week.
The four-week average, which smooths out some volatility, fell to 279,500 last week. That was the lowest level since May 2000.
Despite that upbeat data, other labor market indicators signal trouble.
Layoffs announced by U.S. companies jumped 68% in April to 61,582, career counseling firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. said Thursday. That was the highest monthly level since May 2012.
The effects of lower oil prices were the cause for the increase and have pushed announced job cuts for the first four months of the year up to 201,796, a 25% increase from the same period last year, the firm said.
This year's total is the most for the first four months of the year since 2010, and is consistent with recent weak job growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
“It’s the weather!!!... “ /sarc
“About 265,000 people applied for first time unemployment benefits in the week ended Saturday”
In the scheme of labor data, this number is not that important. The real gague of labor fluidity (which is all this really shows) is how many people have continuing claims and whether that number is going up or down signficantly.
From the orginal Dept of Labor press release announcing the data:
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending April 18 was 2,334,281, a decrease of 105,948 from the previous week. There were 2,832,693 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2014.
http://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
As you can see it is down from the week before and the year before.
The energy boom kept Obama’s economy from sinking like a rock for the past six years. Do you see any other part of the economy that will take up the slack now? Better sell your stocks, Duckie.
The numbers are meaningless, unless you know that the reduction was a result of people finding jobs, and not caused by people running out of benefits and becoming perpetually unemployed.
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