You heard what you wanted to hear in Powell’s Fed talk today
On the one hand, stock markets heard Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterate his comments of last week that “disinflation” had become visible. (Disinflation is a slowing in the inflation rate.) At the close today the Standard & Poor’s 500...
Hot enough to make the Fed say ,”75, please”? November jobs report comes in above forecasts
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 263,000 in November, the Labor Department said today. (And the October jobs total was revised upward to a gain of 284,000.) The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%. Average hourly wages rose 0.6% in November from October. That was the...
Please watch my new YouTube video: Jobs: the Recession Barrier Erodes
My one-hundred-and-sixty-third YouTube video “Jobs: the Recession Barrier Erodes” went up today. Are we in a recession or not? Many economists argue that because there’s strength in the labor market, we can’t be in a recession. But what...
May jobs comes in stronger than expected; that should put the kibosh on thoughts of a Fed pause in September
The U.S. economy added 390,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department reported this morning. Economists had expected the economy to add 318.000 jobs for the month. In April the economy added a revised 436,000 jobs. The unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.6%. Economists...
U.S. economy adds 428,000 jobs in April; stock market says, Oh! No!
The U.S. economy aded 428,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department reported today, May 6. That matched the jobs gains in M arch and was above e the 380,000 jobs expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The official unemployment rate remained at 3.6%. Economists...
Economy adds 250,000 more jobs than expected in February, wage growth lags
The U.S. economy added 678,000 new jobs in February. That was the most new jobs since July. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected the economy to add 423,000 jobs in the month. The official unemployment rate fell to 3.8%. The U-6 unemployment rate, which...
U.S. economy adds 467,000 jobs in January–more than economists had expected and cementing the Fed’s plan to raise interest rates in March
The U.S. economy added 467,000 jobs in January. The official unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4% from 3.9% in December, as more people moved off the sidelines to enter the labor market. Over the past 12 months, the United States has added nearly 7 million jobs....
ADP private payroll drop is negative lead in to Friday’s official jobs report for January
It is enough to make financial markets nervous this morning. This morning, the ADP Research Institute report on private company jobs showed a big decline of 301,000 jobs in January. Economist surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for an increase of 180,000. The drop in...
U.S. private payrolls grew by 807,000 jobs in December, ADP says today as market waits for Fed minutes from December meeting
U.S. private payrolls grew by 807,000 in December, according to ADP Research Institute today. That’s the most jobs added in a month in seven months. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected an increase of 410,000. Financial market reaction has been modest...
Why financial markets didn’t believe today’s jobs number
Going into today’s September jobs report, the consensus speculation was that a print of fewer than 200,000 new jobs for the month had the potential to move the market because it would be weak enough to push the Federal Reserve into putting off its plans to begin...
Stocks on pause as market waits for Friday’s May jobs numbers
The last time the government reported monthly jobs numbers, investors and traders faced a big surprise. In April the U.S. economy added only 266,000 jobs. That was well below expectations for the addition of 1 million jobs in the month. Waiting for the May jobs report...
Surprise! Economy adds only 266,000 jobs in April–not 1 million
The U.S. economy added just 266,000 jobs in April, far fewer than the 1 million economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected, the Labor Department reported this morning. The unemployment rate rose to 6.1% in April from 6.0% in March on an increase in the labor force...
Today’s ADP jobs survey keeps markets on edge over Friday’s government jobs report for April
U.S. private employers in April added the most jobs in seven months, according to data from the ADP Research Institute released today. Company payrolls rose by 743,000 in the month. That’s a big gain from the upwardly revised 565,000 gain in March. And...
Jobs, jobs, jobs: A blockbuster report on April jobs on Friday is likely to put more pressure on the Federal Reserve
The U.S. economy is likely to have added 978,000 jobs in April, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will report on Friday May 5, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would be up from March’s gain of 916,000 jobs and would be the biggest increase since...
Show us the jobs, Federal Reserve says, before any interest rate increase
We want to see the job gains before we remove any support for the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said at an event at the International Monetary Fund, on Thursday, April 8. Putting another marker in the ground on when the central bank might start to...
Economy unexpectedly loses jobs in December
The U.S. economy shed 140,000 jobs in December. That’s the first monthly job loss in eight months. Economists had expected the economy to pick up a very modest 50,000 jobs in the month. The official unemployment rate held at 6.7%. The U-6 unemployment rate,...
Initial claims for unemployment even worse than expected as coronavirus shutdowns bite
For the week ended December 12, the number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment in regular state programs rose on a seasonally adjusted basis to 885,000, an increase of 23,000 from the previous week. That was the largest gain in the last three months. A...
New claims for unemployment climb again this past week
Initial claims for unemployment in regular state programs rose on an adjusted basis by 137,000 to 853,000 in the week ended December 5, the Labor Department reported today, Thursday, December 10. The unadjusted total rose by 229,000. Another 428,000 workers applied...
So why wasn’t the market more excited about the drop in new claims for unemployment?
Initial claims for unemployment in regular state programs fell by 75,000 to 712.000 for the week ended November 28. That was the first decline in new claims for unemployment in three weeks. And a big improvement over the 775,000 initial claims that economists had...
Initial claims for unemployment drop–but it’s not enough
New claims for unemployment in regular state-run programs fell to an adjusted 709,000 in the week ended on November 7. That was down 48,000 from the prior week. On an unadjusted basis, the figure fell by 21,000. Continuing claims–the total number of Americans...
Jobs market recovery continues to slow in today’s report on initial claims for unemployment
This morning the Labor Department reported that another 870,000 workers filed new applications for state-run unemployment insurance for the week ended September 19. (That’s on a adjusted basis.) That compares to 866,000 initial claims in the prior week. Another...
Payroll gains for August come in as expected at solid 1.37 million, but pace of recovery continues to slow
The United States added 1.37 millions jobs in August, the fourth straight monthly gain. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected an increase of 1.35 million jobs. The official unemployment rate fell by more than expected by almost two percentage points to 8.4%....
Initial claims for unemployment drops below 1 million for last week
The number of workers applying for unemployment benefits from state unemployment programs fell below 1 million for the week ended August 8. At 963,000 the number was below the 1.18 million new claims for the week of August 1. Economists had expected initial claims of...
So why was Friday’s jobs report for July so worrying?
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. economy added 1.8 million jobs in July. Not a bad number, on an absolute scale. 1.8 million jobs is a lot of jobs. And the total did beat economists’ expectations by about 300,000 jobs. But…...
ADP private payrolls report foreshadows negative government July jobs report due Friday
The ADP Research Institute report on private payrolls doesn’t always track with the government’s monthly jobs report, but the trends usually matches up. Which argues that Friday’s July jobs report will show that the economy and the labor market took...
Initial claims for unemployment total ticks up, ends downward streak
Too much news today. But let me start. Today the Labor Department reported that new claims for unemployment through regular state programs rose to 1.42 million in the week ended July 18. That was a 109,000 increase from the prior week and the first increase in the...
Market worries that a smaller-than-expected drop in new claims for unemployment portends future downturn in economy
Initial jobless claims in regular state programs totaled a seasonally adjusted 1.3 million in the week ended July 11, down just 10,000 from the prior week, the Labor Department reported this morning. That’s the smallest drop in the new claims since March and...
In context today’s new claims for unemployment number is bad news
These days you can’t read an economic report, especially a jobs report, without a calendar. Today’s report on initial claims for unemployment — a weekly number for the week ended July 4–showed that new claims for unemployment continued their...
July is shaping up as the cruelest month in the coronavirus economy
In May governments shed more than 570,000 workers as states and cities grappled with huge budget shortfalls created by the coronavirus pandemic and shutdowns of economic activity imposed in an effort to get the outbreak under control. those layoffs are going to get...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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