Initial Unemployment claims drop to 3 1/2 year low

Job market brightens as unemployment claims sink

Far fewer people are seeking unemployment benefits than just three months ago — a sign that layoffs are falling sharply.

The number of people applying for benefits fell last week to 366,000, the fewest since May 2008. If the number stayed that low consistently, it would likely signal that hiring is strong enough to lower unemployment.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...W11OLw?docId=932d82e4d1244e4eb625d00448d3113b

Initial UI claims below 375,000 are regarded by most economists as consistent with an improving job market.

Those of us not invested in failure for political purposes will view this as good news that the economy may be recovering more strongly than many predicted.

 

I will like to see this after the holiday season. And really, I am glad that no more harm is being done by that faux stimulus from 2009 and now the market can equalize without government intervention.

 

Doesn't this just mean you're running out of people to put on unemployment?
I mean I want you guys to get out of your slump as soon as possible for the sake of the rest of the world, but initial UI claims is not a good statistic to look at to judge your economy. There are plenty of factors that go into those numbers.

Even raw UI numbers can be misleading because some people could still be unemployed for so long they no longer qualify so they're off UI but not employed.

 

No. Why would it mean that?

There are many types of data that measure economic activity. Initial unemployment benefit claims is just one of them. It is a measure of how many people lost jobs that week and filed for unemployment benefits. Lower numbers means fewer people are losing their jobs.

The initial unemployment claims numbers at the height of the recession were in the 500-600 thousand range.

These are initial unemployment claims numbers, not continuing claims.

 

They pulled this same "happy times are here again!" story last year around the holidays. Using seasonal jobs to paint a rosy picture of the job market is just one of the desperate strategies Obama will use.

 

The data is seasonally adjusted.

Last year at this time the initial claims were consistently over 400k.

 

The the very simple reason:

The U.S. economy created 120,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate fell to 8.6%, its lowest level in more than two and a half years, the Labor Department said Friday.

The reduction in the jobless rate, which stood at 9.0% in October, stemmed in large part from a decline in the size of the labor force. Some 315,000 people stopped looking for jobs last month, which is usually not a good sign.

http://hotair.com/headlines/archive...nks-to-310000-people-leaving-the-labor-force/

 

Stop counting enough people, and I'm sure we'll have reports of a 4% unemployment rate soon!

 

Why would you say they are not counting people?

 

The BLS Civilian Population Survey, from which the unemployment rate is derived, showed 278,000 more people employed last month.

But what does that have to do with the decline in the number of initial unemployment claims?

 

Because if you stop looking you aren't counted anymore.

Thats the fallacy of the number.

 

That has no effect on the initial unemployment claims number, which reflects the number of people who lost their jobs, not the number of people who stopped looking or otherwise dropped out of the labor force.

 

Why are so many people jumping straight to those that are dropping off the role, when the title CLEARLY says INITIAL claims, which either means you can't read or are such a partisan patty that you couldn't stop for 1 second and go "Well cool" because despite the fact that many of you hate the president, less people signing up for unemployment benefits is a good thing.

It's almost as if some of you cheer for a bad economy so you can use it for political leverage and I find that really pathetic...

 

Looks like Obama's stimulus package worked after all, though it would have worked better and faster if Congress had followed Krugman's advice and had a massive injection of capital expenditures.

 

No it has a direct impact on the unemployment number as a whole.

 

LOL Come back when you have months of growth and months of initial claims going down. Then it will be time to say "well cool"

Sorry if we don't celebrate a screenshot of news and apply it to the overall status of the economy like you do.

 

6-7% went to infracstructure projects. Remember shovel ready jobs? Maybe there was enough money injected after all, but Obama and company's corrupt plan to reward his campaign donors screwed up everything.

 

No... what I do is not take good news for granted. Do I think everything is swell now? Nope.

But am I going to crap on every piece of good news that comes across, make stupid comments that don't even address the OP and then pretend like others are painting with a broader brush than they are, no. Seems you got that positions locked in.

 

Yeah, Congress should have listened to Krugman and not the dopey conservatives.

 

Meanwhile, manufacturing took a dump...

US factory output declined sharply in November
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...3-i3Ng?docId=8f3e10810e5845e0a654169a354ec869

 

It's almost as if our economy is dynamic and changes with time!

But I'm glad you've become dubious of conservative free trade agreements with sweatshop nations, which is at the heart of the loss of manufacturing jobs.

Wait . . . you aren't!

 

Manufacturing's been on the way out the door for a long time, I think the low employment numbers we currently have coupled with the decrease in manufacturing are signals that we're moving towards a more digital economy, much like the transition we made from agriculture to manufacturing during the last century.

 

I am going regret feeding the troll but...

Congress was supermajority of dems and they had free reign to spend the money however they wanted without listening to a word the GOP had to say. The dems did with that money what they wanted to and nothing got "stimulated" to the point where it was selfsustaining. Only after the GOP got control and government got out of intrusion has things started to normalize. Even with a tax break from INCOME taxes, the equalibrium would not have been met and we would have just inflated the consumer spending on credit bubble even more and had a bigger crash later.

 

It really is strange how things were so bad when liberal Democrats had control of the White House and Congress. They know exactly how to fix everything, yet, for some reason, they chose not to during that time. Weird, huh?

 

Fascinating. But this thread is about initial unemployment claims dropping to a 3 1/2 year low.