Posted on 08/22/2019 11:21:18 AM PDT by hotsteppa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing applications for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, suggesting the labor market was holding firm despite a manufacturing slowdown and concerns the economy is on a path toward recession.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 209,000 for the week ended Aug. 17, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
The decline was sharper than expected. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims would drop to 216,000 in the latest week.
U.S. stock index futures held onto gains following the data's publication.
The four-week moving average of initial claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, edged up 500 to 214,500 last week.
Last week's claims data falls during the same week the Labor Department conducts surveys used to estimate national employment during the month of August.
The four-week average for new unemployment benefits claims was lower than the corresponding week in July, a positive signal for employment during the month.
There are few signs a bitter trade war between the United States and China was spilling over to the national labor market, although growth in manufacturing jobs has slowed this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.reuters.com ...
Amen...
Only a fool believes the BLS stats.
obvious early indicator of a coming recession... /s
I predict soup kitchens opening up within a month....
Reuters couldn’t even complete the first sentence of the story without taking a backhanded slap at the Trump economy.
CNBC reported the decline as “unexpected” as they do for ALL positive economic news during this Presidents time in office.
As if the "unexpected" nature of this information somehow de-legitimizes the data, not the expectation.
During the Kenyan administration years,the BLS reports were pure BS. Since the Swamp really wasn’t drained,I suspect the same losers are still crunching these numbers for their swamp masters.
I just read the headline and first few sentences to my wife and asked her what impression she came away with.
“Doom and gloom.”
She is neither intellectually challenged or disinterested in current t events.
That’s un-possible during a manufacturing pullback.
They did the same thing during Reagan's presidency, particularly his first term. No piece of positive economic news could ever, ever be reported without couching it in language that made it seem either to mean the opposite of what it actually meant, or seem insignificant, or seem to be balanced by some (usually illusory) bad news.
That was only if they couldn't avoid reporting it, which was the preferred approach.
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