https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/17/weekly-jobless-claims.html
Jobless claims came in around 860,000, down from last weeks 893,000 and below the Dow's estimate of 860,000. Continuing claims also were lower than expectations by a couple million. While these are both good pieces of news, these numbers are still well higher than pre-pandemic figures. As the economy begins to reopen, these numbers should continue to decline. A vaccine, which has been speculated to be ready at the end of this year, would increase the decline in these figures as well.
While this is all good news, unemployment numbers in general are relatively very high and the government is continuing to have to pay massive amount of unemployment dollars to these people, not to mention the pandemic relief stimulus as well. An important question would be how much longer will the government continue this pandemic relief program, and what are the pros of cons of it. It is a much needed addition to unemployment but is also costing the US government an enormous amount of money.
Another interesting point is that markets fell today. Whether it was directly in response to this news can be debated, but it was clear institutional investors did not see a great positive outlook from these numbers alone.
It is not a surprise that unemployment numbers are still high despite the economy slowing opening. Even though the economy is opening, those that were laid off may not have been called back to work and that could be due to a slowing demand or low consumer consumption. And I believe that the U.S. will try to continue with the unemployment benefits even if it means that they will have to decrease the amount even more. But at the same time, the expensive stimulus packages may pose future generations problems.
ReplyDeleteI agree that unemployment is getting better, it is just going to take time. Some jobs are slowly coming back and will continue to come back, but I also know that others are not. The others are being replaced by technology or the businesses have to cut labor costs in order to stay open. I think the government is doing the right thing by still keeping the unemployment benefit but decreasing it to $300 to save some money. This goes along with the fact that politicians may be more reluctant to borrow more knowing that they have already borrowed a great deal, but keeping the economy afloat is a greater priority than debt at this point in time.
ReplyDeleteeven though the economy is somewhat back their are still a lot of people still getting the unemployment benefits, and can you imagine the impact it will have when most of them get off of it and are still jobless.
ReplyDeleteWith the given relief packages for unemployment, I believe a lot of individuals preferred to stay on unemployment because they were still bringing in a large sum of money. They got comfortable. With the economy slowly reopening, I cannot see the relief programs continuing past the end of 2020. I believe a new year and a vaccine will increase consumer confidence, and the economy will begin growing again. That being said, the unemployment rate will fall around the same time.
ReplyDeleteI think that while its great the jobless claims are down, the large amount of unemployed workers still will take some time before they can find a new job. In addition, it will take some time of businesses doing well before companies can begin to hire new workers. I hope the things begin to pick back up even more for jobless claims and the economy as the holiday season is soon approaching and companies will try their best end on a high note as they always do.
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