It’s not just the U.S.–China’s college grads face a jobs problem too, one big enough to upend China’s economy
The unemployment rate for U.S. recent college graduates (ages 23–27) is 4.59% in 2025, up from 3.25% in 2019. That’s higher than the unemployment rate for the U.S. population as whole, which stood at 4.3% in August. That’s an inversion of the historical trend. I’m...Stronger than expected March jobs report nudges odds against June rate cut slightly
The U.S. economy added 303,000 jobs last month. That was far more than than the 192,000 expected by economists.The unemployment rate dipped to 3.8%. For today at least the stock market sees the report as “The glass is half full.” Yes, a stronger than expected labor...This week it’s a battle between AI and inflation
This week I expect a battle for the market’s attention between the continued AI monster momentum story and the macro story on inflation and interest rates. Will the extreme AI momentum that ended the week–with Nvidia (NVDA) up 4.0%, and Advanced Micro Devices...
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...
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...
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...
Record 4.4 million U.S.workers quit their jobs in Sptember
A record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September. September’s “quit” numbers constituted 3% of the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s up from the previous record set in August, when 4.3 million people quit their jobs —...
September jobs surprises with just 194,000 instead of expected 500,000
It’s why they play the games. On paper, there’s no way that the San Francisco Giants finish ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. But after actually playing all the games, the Giants did. On paper, there was no way that the U.S. economy added less than 200,000...
July job report says the economy added 943,000 jobs in July: Did it really? What’s it all mean
This morning the Labor Department released its July jobs report. It showed a gain in non-farm payrolls of 943,000 against 938,000 in June and the 865,000 proejcted by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The headline unemployment rate fell to 5.4% from 5.9% in June and a...
The week’s big event? Friday’s report on jobs for June
All eyes on the Friday morning release of the June employment numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg are expecting a rebound from a weak May report to 700,000 net jobs added in June. May was a surprisingly weak 559,000 new jobs....
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...
The Fed stands pat but I see interest rate increase “slippage”
At today’s (March 17) meeting of its Open Market Committee the Federal Reserve held its target interest rate at 0% to 0.25% and continued its commitment to buying $120 billion a month in Treasuries and mortgage-backed assets, as expected. But the central...
Fed chair Powell calls unemployment numbers garbage; says real rate is 10% not 6.3%
In a speech on Wednesday, Federal Reserve chair Jerome H. Powell said that the unemployment rate in January was “close to 10%, not the 6.3% rate reported by the Labor Department last week. Part of the problem is a misclassification of unemployed workers as employed....
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...
Merry Christmas! An unemployment cliff looms for 12 million workers on December 26
According to a report from the Century Foundation, 12 million Americans are set to lose unemployment insurance by the end of 2020 with the bulk of those 7.3 million set to lose their benefits on December 26. When Congress wrote its coronavirus rescue bills, it created...
New claims for unemployment dip a miniscule 7,000
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the seasonally adjusted number of initial claims for unemployment in regular state programs for the week ended October 31 was 751,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous...
At 898,000 this week’s initial claims for unemployment worse than expected
The number of new unemployment claims in regular state-run programs rose last week to a seasonally adjusted 898,000. That’s up 50,000 for the prior week and the biggest increase in first-time unemployment claims since August. The economy has clearly stalled with...
Initial claims for unemployment increase or fall or something–but whatever it is, the economy is stalling
The number of initial claims for unemployment for the week ended October 3 was 840,000, the Department of Labor reported this morning. That was above the 820,000 projected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. And up, er, I mean down, from the 849,000 new claims...
Heads up! Tomorrow we get another (probably discouraging) report on new claims for unemployment
Initial claims for unemployment for the week ended October 3 will total 820,000 in tomorrow’s report from the Department of Labor, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would be a drop from initial claims of 837,000 in the prior week. The...
Weekly new claims for unemployment drop again–but at slower than expected pace
If the contests between the stock market–which sees a rapid V-shaped recovery for the economy–and the Federal Reserve–which sees a slow recovery very stretching over two years, today’s report on New Claims for Unemployment comes down on slow...
New claims for unemployment rise by 1.54 million for week ended June 6
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits continued to trend lower with 1.54 million workers applying in the week ended June 6. That’s down from 1.9 million initial claims in the prior week. (Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected 1.55 million...
Another 1.88 million new claims for unemployment this week, slightly more than economists had projected but still down from the prior week
Initial claims for unemployment for regular state programs totaled 1.88 million for the week ended May 30, according to the Labor Department. (This total does not include self-employed or gig workers that are now receiving unemployment under newly passed coronavirus...
New claims for unemployment 2.12 million for week ended May 23
The stock market is seeing the glass as half full this morning. This morning the Labor Department reported that 2.12 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment in the week that ended on May 23. That is down from 2.45 million initial claims in the prior week...
Another 2.4 million workers filed initial claims for unemployment last week–but take the data with a grain of statistical salt
According to the Department of Labor another 2.4 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment in the week that ended May 16. That puts the total from this report at 38.6 million initial claims for unemployment filed in the last 9 weeks. The two-month total...
Today’s big job losses in ADP survey don’t bode well for Thursday new unemployment claims and Friday government jobs report
Employment at U.S. companies plummeted in April by the most in records back to 2002, according to numbers fro the ADP Research Institute release today.. The report reflects data through April 12 in order to align with the report from the Labor Department for April,...
Another 3.8 million new claims for unemployment in past week and job losses shift to white color jobs
The job losses continued, as expected, with 3.84 million people filing new claims for unemployment in the week that ended on April 25. That follows on 4.44 million new claims for unemployment in the prior week. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had projected 3.5...
Just a reminder: weekly report on new claims for unemployment tomorrow
The projections from economists are that the total initial claims for unemployment will fall to 4.5 million for the week ended on April 18. That would still be a horrendous number. The total weekly figure at the beginning of this spike was 280,000. Last week, 5.25...
Job losses top 22 million as week sees another 5.2 million initial claims for unemployment
5.245 million more people filed initial claims for unemployment in the week ended April 11, the Labor Department reported this morning. That was down from the prior week’s 6.615 million (revised upwards from an initial report of 6.606 million.) But it still...
Economy loses 701,000 jobs in March; April looks much worse
The U.S economy lost 701,000 jobs in March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced this morning. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in March from 3.5%, a 50-year low, in February. The survey behind the numbers was completed by March 12 so it didn’t capture the...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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