By Diane Alter, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
Job layoffs in August were a notable improvement from July. However, the 2015 year-to-date total is up 31% from the same period a year ago.
Retail and oil have been hit particularly hard.
Keep reading to find out where the steepest job cuts came from last month...
By Diane Alter, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
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The U.S. jobs report showed 105,696 pink slips were handed out last month as job cuts skyrocketed to the highest level in four years.
The oil patch continues to feel pain, but it isn't alone.
Keep reading to see which industries and companies were hit the hardest...
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There is another side to the U.S. unemployment problem: Believe it or not, there are three million jobs going unfilled.
Employers can't seem to find the right match for more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs alone.
The transportation, utilities and trades sectors have almost half a million jobs open, waiting for the right applicant.
These positions are for vocational or skilled workers, who are in short supply.
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By Diane Alter, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
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When bad news is good news for stock markets you know just how convoluted the current economic environment is.
According to the May jobs report out today (Friday), the U.S. unemployment rate ticked up to 7.6% in May from 7.5% in April, the first increase since the start of 2013. And, markets rallied on the news. The Dow Jones soared more than 200 points by mid-day.
Some will say the May jobs report was good news – thousands of out-of-work people returned to the work force, and the 175,000 jobs added beat expectations.
The reality is we're just treading water. And the labor force participation rate is still at 30-year lows.
But the real good news is the jobs report means more U.S. Federal Reserve support, which will fuel markets already hitting record highs.
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The last time the U.S. economy suffered through a double-dip recession, this country was struggling to overcome the fallout from an Arab oil embargo, Vietnam War-era deficits, and an inflationary spiral that just wouldn't let go.
That 1981-82 double-dip downturn – the result of an economic "shock treatment" aimed at curing those ills – consisted of two recessions that were separated by a single quarter of growth.
The current backdrop is very different from the one that was in place back then, but the threat of a double-dip recession is no less real. Indeed, with each passing week, and with every new economic report that comes out, the possibility that the U.S. economy will backslide into a double-dip recession seems to become more of a probability – or even a likelihood.
"For me a 'double-dip' is another recession before we've healed from this recession [and] the probability of that kind of double-dip is more than 50%," Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University and co-developer of Standard and Poor's S&P/Case-Shiller home price indexes, told Reuters. "I actually expect it."
By Don Miller, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
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While a surge in corporate profits reflect an improving economy, several government reports show that the United States continues to be plagued by a lingering "jobless recovery."
Most analysts, including President Barack Obama, are predicting a strong May jobs report due out today (Friday) with more than 500,000 new jobs added to the U.S. economy.
"We expect to see strong jobs growth in Friday's report." Obama predicted in a speech in Pittsburg on Wednesday.
By Kerri Shannon, Associate Editor, Money Morning - • Print | Email
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Any speculation that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had his finger on the "exit strategy" trigger has been silenced.
Bernanke yesterday (Wednesday) faced the House Financial Services Committee to instill public confidence in the Fed's ability to exercise a smooth exit strategy and quell continued fears of a tightening monetary policy.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) "continues to anticipate that economic conditions — including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations — are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the Federal Funds rate for an extended period," he said.
By Shah Gilani, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Morning • @ShahGilani_TW - • Print | Email
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Sooner or later, mounting losses on commercial real estate could crash through the market's 2009 optimism and send the economy and stocks into a double-dip downturn.
The major problem is that lawmakers and regulators are setting up investors into believing that commercial real estate (CRE) losses are being effectively addressed. The truth is that escalating losses are being hidden as part of a campaign of optimism in a desperate gamble that a robustly reviving economy will save the day.
To protect yourself from another investment beating, here's what you need to know.
To find out how to avoid the commercial-real-estate implosion, please read on...
By Jon D. Markman, Contributing Writer, Money Morning - • Print | Email
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Stocks have staged surprise rebounds after seemingly poor payroll reports half a dozen times in the past year. But the one time that there was better-than-expected job news, on Dec. 5, the market tanked. Go figure – it's a great example of how upside down the logic is on Wall Street.
To help us interpret the jobs report of last week, I turned to my favorite independent labor analysts, Philippa Dunne and Doug Henwood. Here's their view of the latest numbers, which they considered the most positive in months – despite the many problems highlighted by the latest jobs report.
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New statistics from the Labor Department today (Friday) will likely confirm that the U.S. economy is in a deeper hole than previously thought.
Economists expect that the national unemployment rate rose to 10.1% in January from 10% in December. More importantly, however, the number of jobs lost from April 2008 to March 2009 will be revised upwards by 824,000 – the largest margin in 18 years, according to Bloomberg News.
Most of those losses came from companies that closed or went out of business, which would undermine the popular birth/death model for joblessness. That model is based on the assumption that hirings at newly formed companies generally offset the job losses associated with company closures.
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