US jobless claims return below 300,000

Yahoo Finance ^ | 03/12/2015

[SeekAndFind]

New claims for US unemployment insurance fell last week after two weeks of gains amid severe winter weather, Labor Department data showed Thursday.

Initial jobless claims fell 11 percent to 289,000 in the week ending March 7. The previous week's level was revised up by 5,000 to 325,000.

"Harsher-than-usual winter weather likely boosted the level in the previous two weeks," said Jim O'Sullivan, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, in a research note.

"We doubt the underlying trend in claims has changed significantly. A sub-300K trend in claims implies continued strong employment growth and no let-up in the downtrend in the unemployment rate."

[SeekAndFind]

It's fun with Thursday jobless claims numbers once again...

[George from New England]

What a useless job stat.

[Gaffer]

So....there were purported “gains” during two weeks of severe weather, yet there were UNEXPECTED declines in today’s data? What’s the excuse this 100 umptyith time? Some water buffalo farted in China?

[txrefugee]

Well, YA-HOO…except that retail sales are in the toilet in spite of lower gas prices, and the consumer is the backbone of our economy. The real unemployment rate is pushing 11%, and you can’t buy much with a part-timer’s pay.

[lacrew]

“Harsher-than-usual winter weather likely boosted the level in the previous two weeks,”

Why? If anything, the unemployment offices may have been closed for a day or two, lowering claims.

[sportutegrl]

When fewer people actually have a job, there are fewer people to lay off. When you are running a skeleton crew and have cut to the bone, no layoffs doesn’t mean the economy is humming along.

[Iron Munro]

Numbers!

Hey We Got Numbers!

Yes We Got Lots And Lots And Lots And Lots Of Numbers!

♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫ ♪ ♪ ♫

[Parmy]

And, there are still 93 million Americans out of work and not counted.

[tbpiper]

I know of at least 3 guys besides myself who were laid off in February. The numbers are fiction and very poor fiction at that. It seems like a number of companies have decided to offload people early in 2015. I’m appropriately impressed with the economic recovery.