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Initial Claims Drop To 324K, Lowest Since January 2008
There was no surprise in today's Initial Claims data, which continued the downward trend seen in recent months (despite the data seen in the most recent JOLTS survey which was hardly as optimistic on recent labor trends as the NFP number of the weekly claims data), with the headline number dropping to 323K, down from an upward revised 327K, and below the expected 335K print. On the surface, and at least to algos, this continues to be good news. The question remains whether the improving claim trend is due to fewer layoffs, or a lower marginal detachment workforce due to the labor force participation rate which was at 33 year lows for the second month in a low. At this point any additional substantial drops below the 300,000 range will likely mean a major distortion in the labor force as this is where claims numbers were at a time when the economy was actually strong, as opposed to the current liquified stock-market manipulated sham.
That said, with the whisper number expecting a 2-handle on the claims data, it will have to settle for the unadjusted number dropping below the 300,000 range, or 298,497 in the first week of March. People on continuing claims also declined from the upward revised print of 3.032MM, to just over 3MM or, 3,005K, and below expectations of 3,018K.
In total, 4,874,526 citizens claims benefits across all government programs in the week ended April 20, down 89,292 from the week before.
Also from the report, there was the traditional jab at US "Austerity" with the following remark: "There were 18,726 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending April 20, an increase of 531 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 36,718, a decrease of 435 from the prior week." The implications are clear.
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Good for 200 pts on the DOW.
Fuck.
Bu Bu BU Bu Bullshit!!
More than 200. At least 2 fitty. Sequester is best thing to happen to economy.
POMO today is 'only' $1.00 - $1.50 billion, Outright TIPS,
And we've got wholesale inventories and sales in a lttle while, could be interesting.
DavidC
still seems pretty high
There is a disturbance in the force.
Lies, lies and more lies.
It doesn't have to be a lie, really. The stat itself is somewhat meaningless, which is one of the reasons that it is provided as a "headline". Not here, specifically, but in general. If nobody is working, and those who are working work in shitty, meaningless service industry sort of jobs, who cares what the initial claims number is? GDP is another meaningless number... As are the stock market indexes. It's like telling me that the engine rooms are fully operational while the ship is sinking due to the gaping fucking hole in the hull.
You're running out of jobs to cut - at least jobs that do REAL work (plenty of excess upper management that could go).
Companies are running with LESS people than they really need - dumping more on those remaining to keep costs low. They're also getting rid of more expensive mid range talent. One relative working in a major bank 's operations unit was worried that by NOT having a college degree she'd be at risk. Hell no. They got rid of the better paid college grads above her.
Not a lot of muscle left to cut from the bones of this anorexic economy.
Now consider that scenario in the context of a debt fueled economy. When 2008 (or worse) happens again, and people are only fooling themselves if the don't think that is right on the horizon, what then?
If everything is so awesome, then why isn't everyone borrowing at zero interest rates? QUICK JAMES! Take me to the bank so I can get a ZERO INTEREST LOAN!
1
Splendid. So can we yet...
1) Stop POMO?
2) Stop monetizing $85B/month of new debt?
3) Balance the Fed.Gov's budget?
No? Well then whoop-de-damn-do for our running out of people to lay-off 4-years into an economic "Recovery".
Edit: So does this also mean that Sequester-mageddon is, in the net, "jobs positive"? And if so, can we have some moar?!?!?
Clearly the effect of employer confidence in Obama Care. Quickly now, inform the unemployed that they are not...
Claims drop to zero, everyone is issued government cheese, a credit card and a box to live in. Forward!
+mobile phone, and you can qualify for lots of credits with 0% payment.
Double-plus good!
The Ministry of Truth could eliminate unemployment altogether by simply changing the definition:
"You are not unemployed, but under-utilized"... Unemployment therefore falls to zero and the crisis is averted.
One good pandemic would be a far more 'effective' solution. On the scale of the Black Death, such an event would serve to redistribute the accumulated wealth of the dead to the living, increasing the spending power of those who survive. Eonomically, The Black Death was a 'good' thing. And think of all the money spent on pharma - 'cause you KNOW that with enough money, you'd be able to get teatment.
Well! I for one am glad they fixed that.
Now.....if they would just get to work on the national debt I could die happy.
And bury us clutching some gold coins with our cold dead hands?
Sounds like a plan...
I think we have to move to an hours worked model after Obamacare has begun to change the US into an all part time/temp workforce.
Exactly - declining unemployment claims may be the leading-edge indicator as employers convert more of their employees to part-time (<30 hours/week), and then hire more part-timers, to keep from having to provide insurance under ObamaCare's requirements. But regardless of "hours worked," Obama will be able to crow about how more people are technically "employed."
Then what happens if those limits get changed to something that can't be dodged? That is, they just effectively kill the classifications that businesses are using to dodge the law by making it impossible to undercut a directly-hired FT/full benefit worker.
Having those limits even exist was a bad idea in the first place, never mind the whole law that PPACA is.
Or start counting temporary/indirect/staffing agency workers as (employer-formed) labor unions - so that Right to Work can be used to kill the use of second-class labor as a benefits dodge.
Any work model based on massive amounts of temporary employment is one that denies freedom and makes things worse off.
zero jobs = zero Initial Claims = zero percent unemployment rate.
Mission accomplished. Thanks Barry and Ben.
Silver For The People
Ah yes the financials salemen find one statistic they can spin and don't mention all the other indicators that are "not good". In my area too many people are working multiple part time jobs. Too many people have gone on SS disability, and all the other indicators that the Zero Hedge mavens have posted. Makes you wonder where all the "experts" of the Main Strain financial press have their lips applied and are they doing it with eyes open or shut.
Bite the pillow and take it investors and taxpayers. It's good for you.
Would be nice if they could still afford some lube.... and maybe use something not so splintery. Feels like a telephone pole lately.
Guess they can stop with the QE anytime now .
Party like it's Tuesday.
324,000 is still a huge number.
S & P to the moon!!
mission accomplished
Luckily, you still need zero money to buy a house and can still grab one of those 97 month car loans...so all's ok, right.
big surprise. Eventually we'll have 75% unemployment and only 5 people per month will get laid off. LOL.
barry "the nose" ritholtz says its because of bush.... i mean the mob boss that our king appt... barry "blame bush" ritholtz loves him some mob boss
This is why ZH is a necessity:
Report: CBS News Bosses Irked by Correspondent's Thorough Benghazi Reporting""Dangerously close to advocacy"? That's how CBS News apparently views the work of a reporter who is doggedly seeking truth about an issue of enormous importance that many of her colleagues have scrupulously ignored. Remarkable."
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/05/08/report-cbs-news-bosses...
cBS news would certainly know about advocacy.
CBS is basically Tel Aviv's US propaganda channel.
60 minutes of lies.
Now "eye" understand!
CBS News boss is brother of Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rhodes_%28speechwriter%29
THe nature if labor in the US has changed fundamentally.
Therefore the meaning of both NFP and unemployment claims have also changed fundamentally, and do not reflect employment as the did just five years ago.
Part timers aren't eligible for unemployment.
Most people who could have got a job realized they can make more money from Gov programs than an actual job. If you never take a job, you can't make a claim for UE.
I saw an old man driving a 1980s Buick park in the striped off handicap van loading zone because every handicap spot was taken up by an EBT SSDI welfare queen driving a new Chevy. Poor guy had to park illegally and pull his walker from the back seat.
Welfare momma came out with two carts and opened the liftgate of her brand new Traverse. Filled it up and walked back inside to get her other carts. Perhaps she has some unknown condition that requires her to be held up by two shopping carts filled with crap.
If you walk into a store during the first weekend of the month, you might think retail is doing well. Then they become ghost towns until the next time the EBT cards get filled.
Jesus, INITIAL claims? Shouldn't that be ZERO by now?
I think people just stopped wanting cheese.
why does the market care about jobless claims?
it means nothing. i know plenty of people who are out of work, and they are not counted towards this number. it means nothing, absolutely nothing.
of course though because it was better than the street expected, market must go to the moon now.
Holy fucking froth. What a farce.
You hear a lot of just-surviving talk on the sidewalks of Jackson Heights, a polyglot neighborhood just south of LaGuardia Airport. Rajesh, a limo driver who declined to give his last name, says he’s barely scraping by in spite of driving or waiting for fares at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week. “One day ends, the next day is coming,” he says. Klaus Bauer, a 24-year-old immigrant from Cape Town, South Africa, is trying with little success to make it in computer science. He’s homeless. “Right now I might be moving somewhere,” says Bauer. “Another city. Another state. Trying to find some seasonal work, off the books.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-09/whats-wrong-with-the-u-d...
And because precisely what that US needs is MOAR kids taking-on MOAR debt so they can obtain MOAR useless college degrees that will do NOTHING to improve their job prospects at MOAR inflated tuition prices, along comes Sen. Granny Warren (Idiot-MA) on the latest iteration of her Working-Class Hero schtick...
http://goo.gl/ATHDE
Elizabeth Warren has just introduced legislation that will let students borrow money for college at the same rock-bottom interest rates that the Big Banks get...
Yippee! MOAR DEBT!! MOAR PONZI!!! MOAR GUBERMINT CHEEZE!!!!!!
Of course, if they're in school, they don't count as unemployed (yet). So keep 'em in school -- being indoctrinated into Marxism no less.
Hey, what's good for the banks is good for the kids. Don't start bitching about free money now. You're too damn late.
For all the positivity about the April jobs report—lowest unemployment rate in four years!—the U.S. job market remains dismal. One statistic makes the point: Just 58.6 percent of American civilians aged 16 and up had jobs in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-09/whats-wrong-with-the-u-d...
The next sentence after your quote:
"That’s a lower employment-to-population ratio than during the worst of the 2007-09 recession. Even though the jobless rate has fallen, millions of people aren’t counted as unemployed because they’ve stopped looking for work, or never started."
Jobless claims are what again? Oh who gives a fuck, it doesn't matter.
Let me guess - markets will end the day up.
something i have never researched but someone here may know....are initial claims 'supposedly' from actual claims numbers (by definition)? i know the numbers are bullshit (all that) but this is where i am going....if you lose your 'real' job and can file for unemployment then you get a temp job or are 'self employed', then you cant file for unempoyment because you havent paid the insurance. as people go to shit jobs, will they even be eligible for unemployment benefits.....?
if this is the case, the usa should have lower and lower initial claims as people drop out of the 'official' system.
So let me get this right as I seem to be missing something...
The US loses 324k jobs
The US 'created' 250k "jobs"
net loss 70k jobs... and this is a good thing? Split the data points and we become happy with the increase of chocolate rations to 20 grams.
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone.
Next stop, Bizarro World.
Parallel universe where up = down, left = right, wrong = right, etc.
Are we there yet?