As of this week, Unemployment fillings hit a 5 month low according to CNBC. For the week ending Sept 24th 2022, unemployment claims dipped to 193,000. That number is 16,000 less than the previous weeks unemployment fillings, and 22,000 less than the Dow Jones estimation. This shows that the labor market is getting much stronger and recovering from the recent inflation and COVID surges this summer. Unemployment fillings have not been below 200,000 since early May this past year. Unemployment reaching a 5 month low is a great sign for the economy. It shows us that more people are getting out to work compared to how many people are loosing work, which will have many good effects on the rest of the economy and hopefully reduce inflation, however this could also lead to lower productivity because of a underutilization of the economy's resources.
As you mentioned, this is a great sign for the economy and shows us the labor market is moving in the right direction. However, after learning about unemployment in class I am curious as to if unemployment claims dropped due people finding jobs or if people are exiting the labor force and are therefore not employed or unemployed, lowering unemployment claims.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good sign for the economy as the the unemployment creeps towards before the pandemic rates. An interesting thought I have about this is although the unemployment is getting lower I still see everywhere that places are looking for labor and need workers. I believe this is due to the labor force participation rate lowering and having less people in the labor force. Another interesting thing that you said at the end of you blog post was that although this is good it could lead to lower productivity. How I remember this being affected in class, is that, more people might be hired in the firm but the actual Capital (k) that a firm has does not change as quickly so there will be less productivity in the workplace.
ReplyDeleteIt's great seeing the economy slowly recover from the damage that COVID dealt and hope to see unemployment continue to lower since there are getting to be more jobs but what I don't totally get is you saying that it will lower the productivity due to underutilization because I think that even if initially the productivity is lower it will rise once the new workers go through training and get better and more productive at their jobs
ReplyDeleteThis is a positive sign that unemployment has been decreasing and the economy is strengthening. In the last year, there has been a labor shortage in a few industries as many businesses were understaffed and attempting to hire, but could not find any workers. The decrease in the unemployment filings suggest that more workers are finding the available jobs from the industries that were experiencing a labor shortage which is good for the economy.
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