angelweave

November 07, 2003

Some Friday Good News


    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits plunged last week to a level not seen since before the 2001 recession, the government said on Thursday, fueling hopes a long slide in employment had ended.

This article begins with a short analysis and then shifts gears to a section called "Encouraging News," which I'll quote here.

    The magnitude of the drop in jobless claims surprised economists, who expected only a slight drop from a week-earlier level that had been boosted by a grocery store strike in California.

    A department spokesman said problems with adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations could have been a factor.

    "Every week we encourage (looking at) the four-week average. This is certainly one of those weeks," he said.

    The four-week average, which smoothes weekly volatility to present a clearer picture of labor-market trends, fell 10,000 to 380,000 last week, its lowest level since March 2001.

    Some analysts said the latest data suggested a report on October employment the government is set to release on Friday may show even a larger gain in payrolls than the 58,000 that economists on Wall Street had been expecting.
Keep watching.

hln

Posted by hln at November 7, 2003 06:02 AM | General News | TrackBack
Comments

Oh bother. There goes the Doom Merchants' Election 2004 unemployment vote modifier. (Yes, that is an homage to Marvin the Martian.) That sound you hear is Terry McAuliffe grinding his teeth.

Posted by: Matthew Stinson at November 7, 2003 06:33 AM

Just for the record, I have no intention of voting for Bush, and am often accused of being a bleeding-heart liberal. Nonetheless, I embrace a slowdown in unemployment. If any candidate requires a poor economy to make their case to the voters, then they don't deserve to win; simply running against the status quo is not productive.

I also consider unemployment one of the most important economic indicators. I don't really care about corporate profits, and if my 401(k) doesn't perform as well as I'd like, life goes on. I've been in the ranks of the un- and underemployed, though, and no American should have to go through that.

Why do we only hear numbers about new claims? Why don't we watch the total number of *active* claims? Maybe that would be misleading since those whose benefits have expired would look like successes?

Posted by: hans at November 7, 2003 11:14 AM

Hmm...cage match?

hln

Posted by: hln at November 7, 2003 12:57 PM