By FXEmpire.com
US Jobless Numbers Continue to Fall — Great News for the US
Initial claims for unemployment insurance in the United States dropped to 359,000 in the week ending March 24, which is the country’s lowest in four years, the U.S. Labor Department (DOL) reported on Thursday.
The DOL report showed that the weekly numbers, which represent a decrease of about 5,000 when compared to the previous week, is the lowest since April 2008. In addition, the week’s release also reflects the annual revision to the weekly unemployment claims seasonal adjustment factors from 2007 forward.
The 4-week moving average was 365,000, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 382,500, the report said, also showing that the number of unemployed with unemployment insurance for the week ending March 17 was 2.6 percent, a decrease of 0.1 percent compared to the previous week.
There was also a decrease of 41,000 in the number of workers who claimed benefits under regular state unemployment programs, totaling 3,340,000 during the week ending March 17, according to the latest DOL report. The 4-week moving average was 3,387,750, a decrease of 21,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,409,500.
In the unadjusted, advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, the DOL report only showed a slight decrease of 33, as it totaled 319,349 in the week ending March 24. There were 357,457 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending March 17 were in Alaska (6.0), Pennsylvania (4.6), Rhode Island (4.4), Montana (4.3), Oregon (4.3), Wisconsin (4.3), New Jersey (4.2), Puerto Rico (4.2), Idaho (4.1), Connecticut (4.0), Illinois (4.0), and Michigan (4.0).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending March 17 were in Florida (+1,876), Hawaii (+469), Mississippi (+405), New Mexico (+292), and Iowa (+278), while the largest decreases were in New York (-3,103), Texas (-1,787), Pennsylvania (-1,606), California (-1,603), and Ohio (-1,419).
While economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had predicted that claims would rise by 2,000, the adjusted data revealed 359,000 initial claims, representing a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week’s adjusted tally of 364,000.
The additional layoffs in the state occurred in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, trade, retail, and service sectors.
Weekly UI claims had increased by 8,000 earlier in the month, and it remains to be seen if the numbers will stabilize in the coming months.
Some CEOs are feeling optimistic. On Wednesday, the Business Roundtable released a survey of CEO expectations pertaining to sales, capital spending, and employment in the next six months.
The forecast may be blurred, however, as “several factors, among them oil prices, a sluggish European economy, political uncertainty in the United States, and questions about future growth in Asia, remain as potential obstacles to higher rates of economic growth in the United States,” according to Jim McNerney, CEO of The Boeing Company.
Recently, some positive signs of a recovering economy have been observed, with monthly payrolls gaining ground and a notable decline in the unemployment rate. However, the “better jobs numbers seem somewhat out of sync with the overall pace of economic expansion,” said Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke at the recent National Association for Business Economics Annual Conference.
“Some key questions are unresolved. … What does the discrepancy have for the future course of the labor market and economy?” Bernanke said.
Originally posted here
