U.S. unemployment claims jump to highest level in two months

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER | Associated Press
March 10, 2005

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 17,000 last week to the highest level in two months, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The increase pushed claims to 327,000, a worse-than-expected showing that was blamed in part on a surge in filings by laid off workers who were not able to get to unemployment offices the previous week, when claims offices were closed one day for the President's Day holiday.

The increase pushed the four-week moving average, intended to smooth out week-to-week fluctuations, to 312,500, up from 307,750 the previous week, which had been the lowest level in more than four years.

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/11402.html

Personal accounts...;-)

Social Security destroying Personal Accounts,
Bankruptcy welfare for the wealthy,
Tax cuts for Billionaires,
Corporate welfare,
Destruction of unions,
Dissolution of the minimum wage,
Not to mention the perennial issues of
God,
Guns,
Gays.

Has anyone else noticed that the Republican party is a very negative party.

they are digusting

Gov.Bush of Fl. and his buddies are slamming thru' legisislation to prevent any attempt to raise the minimum wage. That to me is the most
dastardly action I have heard about in a long time---living in the lap of luxury the bastards are standing on the necks of the poor.

tax cuts!

<a surge in filings by laid off workers who were not able to get to unemployment offices the previous week, when claims offices were closed one day for the President's Day holiday.>

Couldn't get to the unemployment office because it was closed on Monday? What new lame excuse for the jobless recovery will the media come up with next?

"It's actually good news... all it means is that more people are entering the labor market". What a dead horse that has become.

Weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance do not study the labor market at large, as the Household Survey does, which comes up with the unemployment rate.

at-least in MI, the day of the week you can file for UE is based on your SS#. So you can't just pick Monday and stroll on in. That was about ten years ago so it may have changed.

Jay

It may be that way in other states too. But it seems like there would be a provision due to a holiday. They surely can't expect someone to wait a week to file. There is a waiting week before you get your first check, too. So because there was a holiday, one would have to wait three weeks for their first check!

another thing in NC you can file on line so their lame-O' excuse of 'the offices being closed for holiday' is just more laughable BS.

total bunk.

Jay

8:30am 03/10/05
U.S. weekly jobless at highest level since early Jan. By Greg Robb
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 17,000 to 327,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday. This is the largest level of claims since the week ended Jan. 8. The rise was unexpected. Economists were expecting a drop in initial claims to about 309,000. A Labor Department official said some of the increase was due to the President's Day holiday. There was a surge in claims this week, after the holiday-shortened previous week. The four-week moving average rose 5,750 to 312,500.


http://www.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/pulseone.asp?siteid=mktw&guid={8AD35783-6587-4762-8DDE-E8A633EE04E8}

and not contributing anything. If only we had a few million more Ken Lays...

<sarcasm off>

The financial adviser said that they use to recommend a 3 to 6 months saving of monthly expenses in case of unexpected unemployment. But now they recommend a year to 18 months savings because if you are "laid off" or fired you are likely to remain unemployed for well over a year. So the new filings is not a good indicator of our true unemployment problem. I also think the unemployment percent the administration post is rigged and seriously underestimates the number of people without a job.

eom

just lost my job. I am afraid they are going to screw me on unemployment, even though I am entitled to it. They are so cheap, they don't want to pay the premiums, so they always contest it.

Comstock Partners, Inc.

Employment Numbers Without the Spin
March 10, 2005

Last Friday the report that February payroll employment increased by a monthly 262,000 was greeted with great enthusiasm by the stock market and most economists. This was the 39th month since the official recession bottom in November 2001. The following is an attempt to put this number into perspective without the spin.

In the previous five expansionary economic cycles the average increase in employment over the first 39 months was 10.1%. In the current cycle the increase is 1.5%.

If employment had climbed by 10.1 % since November 2001, we would have added 13.2 million jobs instead of the 1.9 million actually reported. That’s a difference of 11.3 million jobs.

If we did add 13.2 million jobs on the current cycle, the average monthly increase would have amounted to 338,000. Instead the monthly average increase has been only 50,000, and we have exceeded 300,000 in only three separate months out of the 39.

Snip ......

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1165

Let me repeat that...

"a worse-than-expected showing that was blamed in part on a surge in filings by laid off workers who were not able to get to unemployment offices the previous week, when claims offices were closed one day for the President's Day holiday

"You see, sir...I couldn't make it in last week because Monday you were closed and despite being newly jobless I was way too busy Tuesday through Friday to file...besides, there's no rush. What's a week with no money coming in going to harm?"

According to them, enough people used this reason to put off filing that it constituted a "surge".

That excuse used by the analysts for being wrong on the numbers is absolutely the most pathetic I've ever seen.

Compassionate Conservatism - Yea Right!

Might as well spit in my face before one preaches that to me again.

Wake up folks, the ship of state is listing severely and most of us don't have life jackets!

I seem to hear that the unemployment figures are "doing well" "beating forecaster expectations" meanwhile, on the every other day when forecasts aren't being fluffed, headlines such as these develop.

Who's telling the truth here? What are the real numbers. This isn't rhetorical either, can someone explain this to me in black and white?

Thanks!

www.jobwatch.org

Since the start of the recession 46 months ago (March 2001), a negligible 62,000 jobs have been added in the U.S. economy. Private sector jobs are still down by 703,000, a contraction of 0.6%. Both represent the worst job performance since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began collecting monthly jobs data in 1939 (at the end of the Great Depression).

To put this performance in historical perspective, in every previous episode of recession and job decline since 1939, the number of jobs had fully recovered to above the pre-recession peak within at least 31 months after the start of the recession. (The average, excluding the 1991 recovery, has been a full recovery of jobs by the 21st month). In the three downturns since the early 1970s, the economy had not only recovered all the jobs lost during the recession but had also generated 5.7% more jobs than existed at the start of the recession. If this historical standard had prevailed, the economy would have had a positive job gain of 7,568,000 by what is now the 46th month of recovery, or 7,502,000 more jobs than we have today.

This is taken from Stephen Roach, A Stanley Morgan economist.

http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20050307-mon.html


Industries leading the pack on the hiring front over the past year include (in descending order): administrative (temp-dominated) and waste services (385,000), health care and social assistance (332,000), construction and real estate (321,000), and restaurants (257,000). Collectively, these four industry groupings, which employed 36% of all US workers on private nonfarm payrolls a year ago, accounted for fully 60% of the total growth in private hiring over the most recent 12-month period.

What's happening is that our labor force is becoming a temp labor force, which means people are hired for various lengths of time. This dynamic is fooling all of our labor metrics. People are showing as hired if they've worked for a one day in the telephon survey period, but they're not showing up on payrolls. Also, we have these peaks and valleys in new UE claims.

In past economic recoveries, people wouldn't take these short-term, low level temp jobs, but today they are.

are also among the lowest-paying industry groupings.

Also, temporary workers are often ineligible for unemployment benefits.

As an employee on the payroll of the temporary agency, a person who is "between assignments" or is "on call" by a client is not technically unemployed. If such a worker files for unemployment, all the temp agency has to do is offer them a job for which they are qualified, and if they don't take it, they are not eligible for benefits.

It is cheaper for an large corporate employer to pay a temporary agency $18/hour for a temp worker than to pay $8/hour for a permanent employee. And since the extra "profit" is going into the hands of worthy stockholders rather than unworthy workers. . . .. .

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab12.htm

You have to learn a little about how the unemployment rate is calculated to make sense of the data, though. What most MSM report as the official unemployment rate is the seasonally adjusted U3.

I have a problem with this number, since it automatically excludes everyone who has given up hope of finding a job, or who is working part-time, or who is otherwise marginally attached. I prefer the unadjusted U6, which is currently being reported as 9.9%, but from what I can tell is truly more accurate than the U3 has been for quite a long time.

To further complicate your understanding, please bear in mind that under *, the BLS no longer publishes the raw data, so we're taking it on faith that the numbers aren't being cooked. Personally, my faith in anything governmental while the BFEE is in charge is functionally nonexistant, so I lean towards even the unadjusted U6 being fudged (I suspect it's really much closer to 15% or more than to 10%).

Comstock Partners, Inc.

Employment Numbers Without the Spin
March 10, 2005

Last Friday the report that February payroll employment increased by a monthly 262,000 was greeted with great enthusiasm by the stock market and most economists. This was the 39th month since the official recession bottom in November 2001. The following is an attempt to put this number into perspective without the spin.

In the previous five expansionary economic cycles the average increase in employment over the first 39 months was 10.1%. In the current cycle the increase is 1.5%.

If employment had climbed by 10.1 % since November 2001, we would have added 13.2 million jobs instead of the 1.9 million actually reported. That’s a difference of 11.3 million jobs.

If we did add 13.2 million jobs on the current cycle, the average monthly increase would have amounted to 338,000. Instead the monthly average increase has been only 50,000, and we have exceeded 300,000 in only three separate months out of the 39.

Snip ......

http://www.comstockfunds.com/screenprint.cfm?newsletterid=1165

A "healthy labor market" my ass. We've never had a recovery from the Bush recession, & I think we're in the 2nd Great Depression. Anyone who's unemployed knows just how fscking hard it is to get a job.

My husband is a union carpenter with welding credentials. He has been out of work since last April. The work he was able to get before that time was intermittent at best. And I am talking all the way back to when Bush first took office.

My husband was on unemployment until it ran out in October. He will be able to apply again next month.

Admittedly winter is a slower time for labor jobs but he never expected to be out of work during peak times during the summer in the first place. There are alot of people out of work in this area. The want ads in my local papers are down to a page and a half at most.

I wonder how many applicants in this surge in unemployment claims are people who were previously on unemployment and still haven't found work?

or some other nonsense.

crappy job numbers or Michael Jackson showing up late for court in his PJs?

who cares about jobs and war and falling dollars when you have MJ in PJs!!!!! This is high priority news!!! <end sarcasm>

Thanks to Bushitler and his minions they're all forcing us into cheap labor for those big corporations!
They want EVERYTHING on the cheap for their greedy gluttonous selves, including a bunch of slaves they call American Citizens.

Fuck them!!!:grr:

contained fewer pages than the Comics.

:(

Already, in January, the first month after global quotas were lifted, 12,200 jobs were lost in the United States apparel and textile industries, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/10/business/worldbusiness/10textile.html?ei=5094&en=8c04b75f372536b5&hp=&ex=1110517200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&position=

Free of Quota, China Textiles Flood the U.S.

Good one! :evilgrin:

the problem?

JimmyJeff Gannon-Gunkheart is the only boosh-staffer without a job!
Er...unless he's still turning tricks outside the gates.