Thursday, September 20, 2012

Jobless Claims Make No Claim on an Improving Economy

Initial Jobless Claims came in at 382,000. This was down from last week’s prior revised 385,000, but was unchanged from last week’s initial read. The Street had expected a decline to 375,000. Continuing Claims continue their downward trend coming in at 3,272,000 down from a prior revised 3,304,000 (up from an initial read of 3,283,000). The Street had forecast 3,300,000 continuing claims. The prevailing sentiment is that the majority of American’s who left the unemployment benefits rolls simply exhausted benefits. The number of Americans receiving emergency extended benefits fell by about 60,700 to 2.16 million. Again, the prevailing view is that many of the people who fell off the extended benefit rolls simply exhausted benefits. Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc., weighed on the data: “The problems are more on the hiring side than the layoffs side. If they panic and start cutting workers that would raise an immediate red flag because layoffs would be a recipe for another recession.” A positive development is that retailer, Kohl’s, announced that it plans on hiring 52,700 temporary holiday season workers. This is ten percent more than last year. A not-quite-so-good development is that Bank of America will cut 16,000 jobs by year end. Of course most of the 52,700 workers hire by Kohl’s will be laid off as well, following the holidays. If there are truly positive developments in the job market, will someone please point them out to us? Tom Byrne tom@bond-squad.com. www.bond-squad.com www.mksense.blogspot.com 347-927-7823 Twitter: @Bond_Squad Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author. They are not, nor should they be considered solicitations to purchase or sell securities.

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