http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/01/24/us/politics/ap-us-unemployment-benefits.html
The article discusses the fact that the number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell to the lowest number in 5 years. They dropped to a seasonally adjusted 330,000 which is the lowest since 2008.
It is worth noting that weekly figures are volatile and can occasionally contain noise, so the data may be slightly uncertain. It still does present a brighter picture for the US economy, with employers cutting fewer jobs and hiring more. An increase in employment levels is a critical hurdle for the US economy to overcome soon. It also discusses improvements in the housing sector, which shows signs of recovering. While activity may have slowed in the most recent quarter, it is possible that these other indicators offer signs of a recovery that will speed up in the near future.
The article discusses the fact that the number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell to the lowest number in 5 years. They dropped to a seasonally adjusted 330,000 which is the lowest since 2008.
It is worth noting that weekly figures are volatile and can occasionally contain noise, so the data may be slightly uncertain. It still does present a brighter picture for the US economy, with employers cutting fewer jobs and hiring more. An increase in employment levels is a critical hurdle for the US economy to overcome soon. It also discusses improvements in the housing sector, which shows signs of recovering. While activity may have slowed in the most recent quarter, it is possible that these other indicators offer signs of a recovery that will speed up in the near future.
As you mentioned above, these weekly figures most likely contain misleading data. It is hard to make much of this because many people were hired as seasonal workers to help businesses manage their holiday traffic. We will have to wait a couple more weeks to take note of any trends within these jobless claims. What we could really use is some better management of the funds. Too often, people get laid-off, find a new job within a couple weeks, and end up collecting unemployment for months on months until the government takes note. But hey, maybe some people got in touch with their senses for the new year and decided to quit accepting unnecessary amounts of money from the government!
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ReplyDeleteWhile it seems like the US economy is doing well, the weekly probably do contain a bit of noise. I think we need a larger sample to properly evaluate what these actually numbers actually mean. For all we know, it could just be a spike related to a certain incident or something similar. As i said earlier, it does seem that the US economy is doing well and there are encouraging signs especially for the housing sector but i personally feel it is too early to come to a conclusion or be extremely optimistic.
ReplyDeleteStill, I think this is a good sign for the US economy. The unemployment rate has been slightly decreasing over the past few years and maybe this is just what we need to believe in a brighter picture for the US economy. At least, we are on the right track.
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