Jobless claims post surprising jump

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of laid off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits rose by a larger-than-expected amount last week, partly reflecting the impact of the California wildfires and a writers' strike.

The Labor Department said that the number of applications for jobless benefits jumped by 20,000 to 339,000, the highest total in a month.

The increase was double what economists had been expecting.

Labor Department analysts said that the California wildfires boosted the number of jobless claims by about 2,000 layoffs and the writer's strike, which has shut down production on many television programs, was also having an impact.

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/15/news/economy/bc.joblessclaims.ap/?postversion=2007111508

It's not like 95% of us haven't been in a deep recession since 2001.

People knew about the fires and the strike. And the general economy is in the tank if regular people are asked.

This is no surprise!

2+2=4

Bush doesn't read the papers...

Auto industry downsizes.....
Financial industry downsizes.....
Construction industry downsizes....

This has been in the last 3 month...do we see a pattern here?

so of course it surprises Wall Streeters.

All other government numbers are massaged and give a very misleading picture.

I guess the slump in retail sales is having some effect on hiring, although you'll never hear that in the "Liberal" media.

In all fairness, it could still be too early for seasonal holiday hiring. I don't know when that normally takes place.

They need to start early for the interviewing and training process. The official start of the holiday shopping season starts next Friday.

In today's local newspaper there was an article where a retail expert lamented the lack of hiring by retailers. She said it doesn't bode well and that companies are expecting much lower sales.

The rush starts the first half of November, they need to have the new people trained by then.
(I worked retail in a past life) :)

IOW if the usual seasonal work force is 1 mil, or whatever, I think only .5 mil jobs would be considered a drop. Not sure, though.

Things suck nowadays.

what the fuck do you expect?!?!?!?!

:shrug:

around here, it isn't even approaching FOUR dollars...yet.

Think about it. Oil prices have jumped 4X in 2 years. Have gas prices yet? They will.

and i would expect gas prices to be around $5/gal by this time next year-not 10.

and btw- a quadrupling of the price of raw materials doesn't necessarily mean a quadrupling of the price of a finished product. think about it.