Jobless claims fall by largest amount since July

Market Watch ^ | 02/11/2010 | MArket Watch

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell by the largest amount since July. The number of initial claims in the week ending Feb. 6 fell 43,000 to 440,000. This was a sharper drop than expected.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Which gets it back to about what they expected a month ago, before the weeks of “unexpected” higher numbers.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

[VanDeKoik]

Those 440,000 other people, whom actually lost their jobs, are just tickled pink!

[Huck]

That’s still almost half a million people. Not good.

[Daisyjane69]

How many more people can businesses cut while hanging on?

They’re already down to the useless brother’s in law. Next cuts they have to make carve into the family members.

meh

[paulycy]

BREAKING NEWS: We’re failing more slower. For now.

[R_Kangel]

Feds are about to hire 1,000,000 or so people for the big census.......that otta look good on the books......for a few months.

[kingattax]

the propaganda machine is in overdrive

[Old Teufel Hunden]

I’m no expert on this, but I still can’t figure out how we had a net loss of jobs over the last quarter but the unemployment figure fell from 10.1% to 9.7%. I thought you would have to have a net jobs gain in order for the unemployment to fall. At least thats what my basic math tells me. Someone help me with this? Do this mean that there were more people who fell off collecting unemployment than applied for it? I don’t get it...

[mad_as_he$$]

I heard Varney (I think) say that in order to recover the economy needs 250,000 new jobs a MONTH for the next NINE YEARS. Ouch.

[ltc8k6]

The labor force has shrunk...

[GoldenPup]

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell by the largest amount since July

Obviously...THEY COOKED THE BOOKS. Now, everybody knows "Enron Accounting". THEY LIE...STILL.

[rdl6989]

bump

[Iron Munro]

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell by the largest amount since July.

That's because we are running out of people to lay off.
.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

And Obama has the audacity to go out and claim some credit for the drop in jobless rates? I wish that the GOP would explain that this drop was not a good thing and what it really means. They have not done that.

[celmak]

3 months from now we will see what the adjustment is...

[The Anti-One]

Doesn't this mean that 440,000 people lost their jobs last week? Who gives a rat's arse if a few thousand more or less didn't? How many more have and are going to lose theirs this week? And more to the point... Those that were already on unemployment? Have they found a job yet^? or have their benefits simply run out?

Let's get past the spin and point out the reality.

Millions are out of work and tens of millions more are headed that way.

JMHO

[TNCMAXQ]

I was down at the Florida space coast this weekend for the shuttle launch. Unemployment is going to go way up down there once the shuttle program ends. I suspect countless hotels, restaurants and other businesses will let go of people or close when the tourism slows way down. Very sad.

[shelterguy]

The unemployment rate is a deceiving as the budget deficit/national debt.

All the libs crow about the phantom “budget surplus” that Clinton left behind. They don’t mention that the national debt he left behind was 5.7 trillion dollars.

Me might see the “unemployment rate” drop in coming months. That’s because as people run out of benefits and are not hired somewhere, they simply disappear.

The “news” people confuse unemployment rate with number of unemployed people.

[Huck]

My understanding is that we are in a secular bear market. These tend to last around 15 years. This one started in 2000, and will run til about 2015. Within the secular bear you have smaller, cyclical bull and bear markets. The runup in 2007 was a cyclical bull, as was the runup in 09 that started in March. This is all chart theory dealing with stock markets, but I think it applies to the overall economy.

It seems we're in for slow growth for a while. And that's neverminding the massive debt, and the gubmint policies that apparantly are putting off the recovery. We may yet have another steep drop. We may yet see more "crisis." And more gubmint intervention. All of which will cause this process to drag on even longer than it might have without such mistakes. But that's human nature, which I toss in with the cost of doing business. At some point it will all unwind. At some point new technologies will appear that will create jobs. At some point we'll get serious about energy independence. A new day WILL come. It may just take a while.

[The Sons of Liberty]

Expect more and more propaganda, and manufactured statistics leading up to the elections.

[newnhdad]

Only when a democrat is president is losing almost half a million jobs an unexpected good thing.

[tiredoflaundry]

BINGO, the well is running dry. What I would like to know is how many small business’ closed last month.

How many jobs are no longer there to go back to?

[ETL]

Seems the only thing that can be “expected” in these reports is that the results will be unexpected by the ‘experts’.

[Jane Long]

I’m sure Michael Steele will get right on that!

[mmichaels1970]

but I still can’t figure out how we had a net loss of jobs over the last quarter but the unemployment figure fell from 10.1% to 9.7%

A large number of people stopped looking for jobs....a hopeful sign...according to the president.

Say you have a wife, two kids, and enough money to feed 50% of your household. Your "unfed rate" is at 50%. One of your kids moves out. Presto...you now have enough money to feed 67% of your household! Your unfed rate is now a healthy and "hopeful" 33%.

[world weary]

I’m no expert on this, but I still can’t figure out how we had a net loss of jobs over the last quarter but the unemployment figure fell from 10.1% to 9.7%. I thought you would have to have a net jobs gain in order for the unemployment to fall. At least thats what my basic math tells me. Someone help me with this? Do this mean that there were more people who fell off collecting unemployment than applied for it? I don’t get it...

The unemployment rate only measures people who are out of a job and actively seeking work, it doesn't include people who have given up looking for work or people employed part time. The drop in U3 that was reported was most likely due to people stopping the search for new jobs (just giving up) or getting part time jobs. To find a more accurate figure of what the employable base of the country is doing you need to use another rate, U6. U6 has started to trend downard this month by 1% which might indicate the overall situation is starting to slightly improve, but in a recent BLS report we get this little tidbet that indicates something else:

"The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up in January, reaching 6.3 million. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of long-term unemployed has risen by 5.0 million." --The Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest Employment Situation Summary, released on Friday, February 5, 2010

This indicates that the number of GOOD (full time, good paying) jobs has shrunk by that amount and it continues to grow....trend up, more unemployed.

[mmichaels1970]

Actually, your unfed rate drops to 25% not 33%, so it is “better than expected”.

[exit82]

In the grand scheme of things, this is insignificant.

This is akin to a rounding error.

And there is no way unemployment went down to 9.7%, and the GDP went up 5.7% in the fourth quarter.

Let’s just call it what it is—they are cooking the books. The corrections will come in two or three months from now when no one cares about these numbers anymore. The Clinton administration had hined this type of quackery to a fine science.

Funny how a lot of the Zero administration are old Clinton hands.

[ETL]

That's because we are running out of people to lay off.

Exactly! Of course this rate will slow as time goes on. It isn't a straight line relationship.

[3catsanadog]

How will the numbers look as a result of the blizzard? There are probably lots of unemployment offices that closed due to the storms. Next week the new claims may double in some places.

[Daisyjane69]

That is the birth/death model of 842,000 that they tried to hide last week.(They covered the last year) Those were losses.

The birth/death model is of businesses, not people.

Moreover, none of these numbers count people like my landlord. A self employed professional electrician. He gets no unemployment compensation, nor is he “big” enough to be counted in the birth/death of businesses number. There are millions of people like him.

I am of the belief that the true unemployment rate is closer to 20% than anything else.

[Uncle Chip]

First-time claims for state unemployment benefits fell by the largest amount since July.

Yeh -- first-time claims might have fallen, but what about second-time and third-time and fourth-time filers. We now have a permanent class of unemployment claim filers.

[The Anti-One]

The "percentages" are the number of people our government pays an unemployment check to every week. Not the number of people that are actually employed. Just because the number of people that are receiving a check has fallen it does not mean the number of people that are employed has gone down. It simply means that those that have been on unemployment the longest are now falling off the ledgers because they have reached the end of the period of time they are allowed to receive benefits.

On a side note. I find it odd that no one ever mentions the tens of thousands of self employed people that are out of work. I'm talking about all the small businessmen and women that are the backbone of American business. Those people that hire 2, 3, 4 or 5 people at most but that are now out of work themselves. Those people are not eligible for unemployment benefits even though they too are out of work. They are also NOT HIRING.

This country is sooooooo screwed and if something's not done to legally remove the illegal alien from the White House's Oval Office not only is the United States screwed but so too is the rest of the world.

Where are our military officers? Do any of you remember the "OATH" you took?

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Shameful at best if not treasonous to do nothing.

JMHO

[tiki]

So we are still hemorrhaging jobs.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

The idea that things are looking rosier because an arbitrary number was off by something less than one percent is really a bit preposterous.

[LibLieSlayer]

These figures lie just like the liar in chief... soon to be revised upwards by 58,000.

LLS

[TomGuy]

That’s still almost half a million people. Not good.

Stewart Varney made the point this morning on Fox&Friends that the Admin is touting the creating of 95,000 jobs.

Varney contends that they would need to be creating 100,000 weekly to make any kind of dent in the UE numbers.

[wbill]

Wait...... was this "Unexpected"?

should I bother to ask?

[LibLieSlayer]

That’s racist! /s

LLS

[calex59]

It’s called cooking the books, an old democrat tradition. We all know those figures are false.

[SoFloFreeper]

Amazing how snowfall will keep people inside!

[tobyhill]

“Claims are now at their lowest level since Jan 2.
Claims had spiked in January, reversing a downward trend.”

????

[jetson]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN9nskoS9PI

[TomGuy]

I still can’t figure out how we had a net loss of jobs over the last quarter but the unemployment figure fell from 10.1% to 9.7%.

In governmentspeak they only select the numbers that produce the desired results.

Those who have been unemployed long-term and no longer qualify for UE benefits are no longer counted. There are two numbers -- the UE number and the actual UE number. The latter takes into account those who are still unemployed but no longer getting state/FED benefits. The latter is also usually buried, when possible.

[COBOL2Java]

Administration: “Our situation is improving! We’re getting worse at a slower rate!”

[wbarmy]

President Bush knew how to stop a recession and did it after the greatest single attack on a financial system which had ever occurred.

As if this President could learn from history.

[COBOL2Java]

“Claims are now at their lowest level since Jan 2. Claims had spiked in January, reversing a downward trend.”

????

I think George Orwell would recognize that as "newspeak".

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Good thing Porkulus created or saved 5,893,501,893 jobs.