U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose by 15,000 to 576,000 (Update1)

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMhGnVzXaSfM

By Courtney Schlisserman

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- More Americans unexpectedly filed claims for jobless benefits last week, indicating companies are trying to cut costs further even as the economy stabilizes.

Applications rose to 576,000 in the week ended Aug. 15 from a revised 561,000 the week before, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits the week earlier was little changed at 6.24 million.

Companies may keep paring staff in coming months, albeit at a slower pace, and hiring linked to the government’s recovery effort may not gain speed until 2010. While the unemployment rate dipped last month, economists project it will reach 10 percent by early next year, restraining consumer spending.

“The improvement in the labor market has stalled,” said Derek Holt, an economist at Scotia Capital Inc. in Toronto, who had forecast claims would rise to 570,000, “Consumer spending will be pushed back on its heels for a longer time than markets are expecting.”

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aMhGnVzXaSfM

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I know there is a lot about "green shoots" but until the jobs come back the economy is in the toilet for a whole mess of people.

Hmm. Right

It is now at a constant rate going down. 2010 is beginning to look bleak, remember the slogan "Its' the economy stupid."

All the talk then was about Iraq, IIRC.

I kept writing that the economy was going to tank and that the economy would be the big issue in the fall election.

I'm still not sure if our leadership understands that there will be no real recovery until there are decent jobs. Their financial backers are too wrapped up in globalism to be able to see the forest for the trees.

I'd say that everyone's job is important.

If consumers won't buy, the economy has difficulty really sustaining a recovery.

We're on a one way street to the bottom, and we ain't seen nothing yet.

All this talk about "stabilizing" and "turn-around" and "recovery" are, to anyone with a brain, complete fantasy.

Just like the the nonsense about "consumers aren't ready to start spending again yet". Oh, you mean all those consumers who are sitting on piles of cash but just aren't "confident" enough in our economy to spend any of it?

Or is it, perhaps, that nobody has any money to spend anymore, after 30+ years of outsourcing entire industries and most of the best paying, working class jobs we had. After 30+ years of destroying the middle class; the backbone of our economy.

Of course, six months ago they were saying things had hit bottom and were about to "recover", and six months from now, and five years from now, they'll be saying the exact same thing.

There's nothing to turn around here folks. The economy has, over the past few decades, been fundamentally transformed from "high paying jobs for the masses" to "minimum wage jobs for the masses" and that's not going to change.

Anyone who honestly believes that this is some little cycle that will spring back on it's own...well, I've got some beach front property to sell you.

Of course, this is a nation of idiots who will believe anything the powers that be tell them to believe, despite the reality right before them.

If it were pouring rain outside but Rush Limbaugh or any other mainstream propaganda hack said it was clear and sunny, most people would be walking around soaking wet saying that it's clear and sunny today!

Thanks Nafta

:eyes:

in a forceful, public manner.

Between the July 4 holiday and the state furloughs, there's only so many new claims that can be processed per week.

They may see this country become unstable.

I mean, during the '60s, we had whole cities consumed with riots. Even then, however, you couldn't say the national or state governments were really threatened.

If you count all the people who want work and don't have it (those who have given up finding a job, part-timers who want full-time work, etc.) we have unemployment between 15-20 percent. There is no way this is going to wait three years for a recovery. If they declare a recovery, and nobody is getting employed, I could really see some real instability, where your hobby with the militia actually becomes your job. Let those militia-guys get cracking at making trouble doing it full time.