New jobless claims increase more than expected

[Joanne98]

Source: AP


The Labor Department reported Thursday that first-time requests for unemployment insurance jumped to a seasonally adjusted 524,000 in the week ending Jan. 10, from an upwardly revised figure of 470,000 the previous week. Analysts had expected 500,000 new claims.

The increase is partly due to a flood of requests from newly-laid off people who delayed filing claims over the holidays, a Labor Department analyst said.

The layoffs continued Thursday with MeadWestvaco, which makes paper and plastic products, saying it will cut some 2,000 employees or about 10 percent of its work force, as it accelerates cost savings this year. On Wednesday, Internet search company Google Inc. said it was closing three engineering offices and cutting 100 recruiters as the recession dampens hiring, and computer equipment maker Seagate Technology said it will eliminate 2,950 jobs, or 6 percent of its work force.

The rise in initial claims came after two weeks of declines that economists said largely reflected those holiday-related distortions in the data. Analysts have said that retailers did not hire as many temporary seasonal workers this year, due to the recession, and so there weren't as many subsequent layoffs.


Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-jobless-claims-increase-apf-14069467.html

[Donnachaidh]

1. yet there are some here who claim we are NOT in a Depression

Half a million people a month losing jobs would beg to differ.

[endarkenment]

2. Unless I am misreading it that number is 500,000+ per week

filing initial claims. That is 2,000,000/month. Of course this is offset by the addition of new jobs, so the net loss is on the order of 500,000/month, which is still huge, and expected to get closer to 750,000/month in the near future.

[Zynx]

5. The first three months of this year will be really really bad.

We'll probably be at 9% unemployment by July.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. We're already at 13%.

[Zynx]

7. Despite many assertions, that is not the measure they used in the Depression.

It may be an accurate measure of labor market underutilization, but it is not what they used when we said we had 25% unemployment. They did not consider underemployment or full time workers being forced to work part time unemployment and in truth I don't either. It is useful for seeing how severe of an illness the economy suffers from, but for historical comparisons it is not proper. A better number is including discouraged workers which does give us over 9% already, I believe. Still, I was saying that the headline number out of BLS will probably top 9% by mid year.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. The baseline is 13%.

Thumb on the scale, or not.

[Zynx]

4. So far we are on track for a 1973-1974 or 1981-1982 recession with regards to unemployment.

Those job losses as a percent of the labor market are right in that range. A recession can become a depression without proper policy intervention. So far we are not there.

[xchrom]

3. while there is some offset from new jobs -- there are not nearly

enough to compensate from the ripple effects all of these unemployed people are going to create.

[Tiberius]

9. Well, I will be in next week's numbers.

Got the axe today... 10 years with my company in IT, so I'm about to see just how overloaded the MA system is. It is pretty surreal to have been following the economy so closely, watching this thing unfold... and now be a part of it. Came home at 10:00am, popped open a beer, and turned on CNBC and it's a bloodbath out there.

But, even despite this, I *still* consider myself lucky - the wife is still employed.