A Ray of Hope on Jobs

October 28, 2010 by PaulM Posted in Current Events, Election 2010, History, Lowell, Politics 4 Comments
www.dailyfinancereport.com via aol.com is reporting an encouraging trend in employment/unemployment nationwide.
America’s bedraggled labor market got a boost today with the latest weekly initial jobless claims unexpectedly plunging 21,000 to 434,000 — their lowest level since July. A Bloomberg survey had expected the report to show a total of 455,000 new claims. Last week’s total was revised 3,000 higher to 455,000.

Perhaps even better, the four-week moving average declined 5,500 to 453,250. Economists emphasize this measure because it smooths out anomalies due to holidays, strikes, weather-related layoffs and other temporary factors.

Continuing claims also plummeted, by 122,000 to 4.36 million. Some of that decline reflects Americans whose benefits have been exhausted, but some of it also those who have found work.

4 Responses to A Ray of Hope on Jobs

  1. kad barma says:

    “Plunging” and “plummeted” are hardly the adjectives I’d use to describe a 4.8% decrease in the pace at which new people are finding themselves out of work, and a 2.8% shift in the total number of people claiming regular benefits because they’re moving into the “emergency” category, where another 4.7 million people languish before they drop off the map entirely for having exhausted their full 99 weeks of benefits.

  2. JoeS says:

    We won’t get good job growth without a re-set in our labor model. We have to remove the burdens (such as health care costs, employer-paid social security costs and others) from US work, and apply an equal amount of cost to consumption. In that way it is not US workers bearing the total burden, but the import sales will contribute their share.