It’s not just the U.S.–China’s college graduates can’t find jobs either
The unemployment rate among 16- to 24-year-olds is 15.6% in China. That’s comparable to the 16.2% in the UK and the 15.1% in the European Union. It’s significantly higher than in the United States.The U.S. unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds was 9.4% in June. (The...
June jobs numbers come in solid but below expectations
The U.S. economy added just 57,000 jobs in June, far below economists’ expectations of 100,000 and down from 129,000 jobs in May. The unemployment rate dipped slightly from 4.3% to 4.2%. Average hourly earnings workers grew by 3.5% on an annual basis in June....
Economy added stronger than expected 172,000 jobs in May
The economy added 172,000 jobs in May, more than economists had expected. The unemployment rate stayed at 4.3%. With revisions, March and April added 93,000 more jobs than previously reported. That puts average job growth in 2026 at about 114,000 per month, much...
Friday’’s jobs report expected to show pick up in hiring
It’s jobs week. On Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its labor market report for May. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg expect that the unemployment rate will hold steady at 4.3% and that the economy generated 89,000. That figure would be higher than...
April jobs come in at break even
U.S. employers added 115,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate remained steady at 4.3%. Economists had projected about 55,000 new jobs and a 4.3% unemployment rate. Revisions to payroll gains over the prior two months subtracted 16,000 jobs from Feb/Mar to take...
March jobs come in above projections
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday that employers had added 178,000 jobs last month, substantially more than economists had expected. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.3%. The numbers were collected before the U.S. war with Iran fully hit the U.S....
U.S. economy loses 92,00 jobs in February
Granted one month’s data needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but the trend is now pointing decidedly downward. The U.S. labor market lost 92,000 jobs in February. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Going...
Unemployment among recent college graduates climbs
Recent college graduates have a growing unemployment problem. Young college grads (ages 22–27) now face unemployment rates around 4.6 to 5.3%, up from about 3.2 to 3.3% pre‑pandemic, and higher than the overall unemployment rate increase over the same period. The...
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...Jim’s Daily Email Alerts:
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