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Initial Jobless Claims Collapse To 15 Year Lows But Shale States Job Losses Explode
After 4 weeks missing expectations (and 3 above the crucial 300k mark), initial jobless claims totally and iutterly collapsed last week. Printing 265k (beating the 300k expectation by the most in years), the 13.9% drop WoW was the biggest since September 2005!!! This is the lowest initial claims data since the financial crisis and in fact the lowest since April 2000. But it is the story from the Shale states that is most troubling as initial claims through the 2nd week of January (data is lagged by state) show a massive surge in initial claims as unambiguously good news is very much not for many thousands across these regions.
Yep looks totally normal...
Lowest initial claims since April 2000... and biggest drop since September 2005...
This is lowest non-seasonally-adjusted claims print for this time of year in at least a decade.
The 265k print perfectly adjusts the 4-week average that is so closely watched below the 300k mark (to 299k)... coincidence?
as Shale State Claims explode...
we can only say WTF!?
Charts: Bloomberg
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low oil prices must be keeping all the burger flippers employed. people can now afford the dollar menu. and the recovery continues.
Fed jacks up rates in 3..... 2......
Participation rates are what again?
Clear proof the shadow of crisis has passed.
We don't bury the lead......we nuke it.
But this low number of claims might indicate that we've reached "peak unemployment"
Such that there's nobody left to lay off now so corporate margins will stop gaining from work force reductions.
Not to say employment will pick up anytime in the next 50 years either..
employers since 2008/9 have scrutinized new hires. many sign an agreement not to file for unemployment..using seasonality or part time as a cover. or if you do file you will be semi-blacklisted in your next job search. the burden is on the slave (employee) to prove he/she will never be a burden on the boss
"Such that there's nobody left to lay off now so corporate margins will stop gaining from work force reductions."
It's arguable that we may have hit that "peak unemployment" a couple of years ago, and we're simply seeing the 99 weekers fall off. Would help explain the more recent focus on stock buybacks vs. labor force reductions as a means to jack up stock price.
You hit the nail on the head, Headbanger. "Data dependent" Fed keeps moving the goalposts on raising rates. Makes for profitable muppet-slaughter vis a vie UST shorts.
Never happen, never ever ever and even if I were wrong they will reverse the next day.
They'll be raised from 0.25% to 0.35%
HOORAY! We be in the money!
3,2,1...
NEVER
Why does anyone react to these BS numbers from the Ministry of Propaganda?
I am on the personal gold standard, I do not react to these CB and government fuckers.
1) Because the algos react to the numbers from the Bureau of Lies, Damned Lies and Labor Statistics.
2) Some of us like to figure out not just that we're being lied to, but specifically how we're being lied to.
I have a good friend who is a Geo Engineer for Baker Hughes. Baker was supposed to lay off 3,000 this past monday, but pushed layoffs until later this week.
Add another 3,000 to that unemployed list.
Looks like people are losing unemployment benefits at a faster pace then folks are applying?
My shrink just got layed off, now he's pissed he can't afford his meds anymore and says he's on his last nerve. I'm at a loss as to how to comfort him, I told him the ambulance ride went up to $500 if he needed it on the short.
Offer him a revolver and a single bullet.
well, i guess we must be All Better again now. time to go get that shiny new car!
In other news the BLS just annouced that they have the Candians doing the job counting...see article on Candian job counting redo
Check the political cycle, oil has historically dropped before big elections & shortly thereafter rises to new heights....
Value investing = BTFDs!
$5 Big Mac meals available now! Americans,,, Best fed suidae's in the world.
low oil prices are filtering into the rest of the economy.
Haha, right. People can service their debts a little longer to push off the pop for a couple of months. Everyone except those involved with shale. Those guys are facing complete losses on huge investments and credits.
It's okay because the bankers will still collect the private gains while dishing the losses to the average joe. Things are really great.
Keep in mind that, when someone loses their job, it usually effects more than one person, not to mention what it does to local economies, and there are quite a few "Financial Gurus" heavily invested in Oil Towns.... (Doh!)
Hit is actually thgov having removed thousands from the long term unemployment linsurance last year. Also cause for the high employment numbers.
A filter is a membrane that prevents stuff from passing on. Bankers as an exampe are giant filters.
With all the store closings, Corp layoffs, Casino closings, Shale pink slips etc. etc it would seem claims would rise. I wonder if they exclude something now. Just seems odd.
Fear not, the adjustments will be adjusted.
Full employment for the November '16 elections.
Forward.
Funny thing about 29.5 hr/wk jobs.......you lose it......you don't qualify for unemployment.
Yea,,, could have went any way!
Double the jobs without the pesky unemployment. Gives new meaning to double your pleasure.
At this rate, the elections in 2016 will be cancelled due to full employment.
Manipulations: Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics.[1] By advancing the interests of the manipulator, often at another's expense, such methods could be considered exploitative, abusive, devious, and deceptive.
Social influence is not necessarily negative. For example, doctors can try to persuade patients to change unhealthy habits. Social influence is generally perceived to be harmless when it respects the right of the influenced to accept or reject and is not unduly coercive. Depending on the context and motivations, social influence may constitute underhanded manipulation.
Are you saying we're being manipulated? Say it ain't so.
Hey, negative rates' shrink is running loose down here.
(Not a bad thing actually.)
If it is at a 15 year low it seems like interest rates should be much higher and wages rising as this previously signaled a very tight labor market. Anyone seen any articles on JOB FAIRs recently. Maybe they dont have them anymore because so many are employed.
Question to ponder:
If people like me are not counted as unemployed, does the money we make on the side count as taxable income>?
I think it doesn't.
you have to laugh at the arrogance of the manipulators in publishing whatever number they need. they know no limits, they don't care, no one is there to stop it...
proof?
sory buddy, santa doesn't exist either
Proof? *sobs*
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-11-27/glimpse-inside-department-labor...
That would be the labor force participation rate. The amount of people who aren't working, have given up working, and thusly aren't counted in the unemployment rate. It's currently the lowest it has been in 38 years.
Why do most that somehow agree with government stats, require proof the government is lying from those that question them, but never require the same of their government?
Creative destruction writ small.
Bullshit! Ummmmm errrr I mean Bullish... yeah nothing to see here. Move along. .
Significant spending cuts announced:
(Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc will cut $15 billion of investment over the next three years as the crash in oil prices saw fourth-quarter profit miss forecasts.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-29/shell-profit-misses-es...
(Bloomberg) -- The company (ConocoPhillips) will reduce expenditures by more than 30 percent to $11.5 billion this year on drilling projects from Colorado to Indonesia.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-29/conocophillips-sees-pr...
The best and most secure job in the US is being a breeding sow churning out litters to support the corporate EBT eaters (Walmart, etal.) and the privatized prison industry.
Living the dream.
Well someone has to eat Mooch's free school lunches because I hear they taste like shit.
I don't know about that.
You're partially correct. You fail to note government employees and the lack of layoffs we're seeing locally, at the state level, and at the federal level... which as far as I can tell is 0.
Massive firings, layoffs and hiring freezes where I live ... all in the private sector; zero cuts in the Gubmint sector. In fact, they're getting a 4% raise my neighbor tells me.
umbigulously good
Uhhh not 200 pt jump in futures ...WTF...guess I am needing considerable time ...
OT:
Can anyone explain this recent news regarding LSE plans to sell Russell at a billion plus loss ?? They bought it last year.
Seeking Alpha-
"The London Stock Exchange Group is looking to sell Russell Investments in mid-February, after buying Frank Russell from insurer Northwestern Mutual last year for $2.7B. The exchange operator has tapped Barclays to sell the business, and has at least three interested buyers, including CIBC (NYSE:CM), Reuters reports. LSE (OTCPK:LDNXF) hopes to fetch around $1.4B for the unit."
See, Capt Jack was correct! The jobs market is strong and getting stronger.
What few people know is that the Central Bankers on a regular basis all pile into a '78 Chevy Subdivision and make their way around the country side. Stopping in at Motel 8's over night to get their finger on the true pulse of Amerika and it's workers. It has be told that several on the un-fed, moonlight as burger filppers and RE sign twirlers on their off weekends. Just giving back a little!
So when they say things are getting better, you can bet they are! They are in the trenches!
USSA!
Sad truth about un employment ... here in Louisiana the max a week is $247 or $6.17 for 40 hours...not even minimum wage...but when i was employed taxes took 30+ % of my pay..
Looks like someone didn't like the direction the NYSE is pointing...
Sign spinners at tax preparation offices offset every other industry.
Funny, was looking at my heavy set Statue of Liberty girl on the main intersection yesterday waving her sign. LIBERTY TAX SERVICE. Would not go there because something about LIBERTY and TAX dont go together.
I can't believe they get people into their business but they've been downtown here for at least a few years. Let's see, where should I go to have someone do complicated math while following an even more complicated tax code? Muppets love people in costume.
Agreed... sickens me.
They go because they either cannot or will not do their own taxes. My son was one of them. Just to show him, I did his taxes in 15 minutes,,, he still went to HRB and had it done. When asked why he replied because they would give him what was left immediately rather than wait 2-4 weeks. The return I filled out matched HRB. He got a total of $265 and paid them $45 I'll let the reader do the math.
Like their governments most of this entire nation is a bunch of scammers and thieves. And the best part,,, their prey come to them.
All smoke and mirrors. Look at the labor (non) participation rate. Numbers rivaling the carter years.
Wow! Just when the Algos need a goosing, the .gov-generated jobs number obliges with a miraculous save! "Its the fucking Catalina Wine Mixer!"
I signed up for unemplyoment one time in the mid 1970's. Once done you had to return to the office each week with a sheet showing that you had applied of a minimum of one job per day, 5 per week. I received one check before I found a job. Not a job I really wanted, but a job. I believe the check I recieved was around $87.00.
How does it work today, are people required to be out job hunting?
lol. . you've been away awhile.
I had a drop in orders - let inventory build a little - warehouse was getting full - had to make a decision - reduce the work force (permanently lay people off) or work 4 day work weeks. We have just under 2,000 employees.
I decided it was better to go to 4 day weeks - better for the company & better for the employees. It costs me a lot more to do it like this (in the short term) - but I honestly care about my employees.
I had employees file for unemployment because their hours were reduced.
I didn't realize you could do that. You still have a job - you are still working 32 hours a week - so you file for unemployment? The state sends you a check. Far as I know you have no obligation to search for a job because you already have one.
the UK government now monitor their unemployed onlines use of a private run public funded "Universal Jobmatch" system, you stop using it and your signed off. However using it is pointless as employers, knowing its used predominantly by the long term unemployed, don't respond to applicants.
You have to claim your benefits online every week. You have to answer some questions (did you look for work, did you turn down any offers) before you press submit and the money is magicaly deposited on your chase bank issed debit card. I got 99 weeks never had to show any proof of looking for jobs, just clicking the right bubble on the screen
Now I am working at a job that pays less than my unemployment did.
99 weeks!
And many complain that Grandma is destroying the nation collecting $600 per month
Same here. Actually took a pay cut when i got the crap job I have now and have to scramble for a 2nd one. Not going well.
Shame on you for doing work no American would do!
I hear that it is all done online now once you file and people just need to type in that they are looking for work.
Three hail Obamas and they have to kiss a bureaucrat’s Richard.
Maybe bad weather prevented people from filing.
/s/
So if oil had not collapsed we'd be at 165k?
They must think we are very stupid....
Yes they do...
And voters prove it over and over again!
Wonder if the Fed had a preview of this when it changed from moderate to strong?
Cant argue with numbers, eh.
Hmmm, methinks some state(s)didn't report data... either way, numbers will be revised upward AFTER a big gain in the stock market, rinse repeat, rinse repeat, rinse repeat......
Oh and BTW this means that if you X-out the roughly 45,000 job lay-offs in the shale/domestic oil sectors then the initial jobless claims would only be 220,000???????
Hmmm, nope, nothing to see here!
Isn't financialization wonderful? It sure has made the bankers and financiers 300-1000% more wealthier. As for everyone else, not so much.
Are there JOB FAIRS anymore OR is the sight of thousands withering in line like having Food Stamp Friday for 46 miilion to get their rations for the coming week. Best to hide the real world.
My guess is that this number is going to see a massive upward revision next week.
so is good news...good news or bad news...never can keep it straight
yes
This is great news. The Fed will be able to raise rates in April because the sheeple will have their tax refund checks and the economic data will spike. MSM will spin that this is an upward trend and re-forecast GDP to +8.5%.
The U.S has never had so many people not working, not looking for work and NO LONGER ELIGIBLE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT...the numbers are not the story as has been noted ad nauseum for years...
But we have record numbers of people on SSI disability! That's why they aren't working. It is because they can't work. Thank heavens that Barry Sotero is letting all those undocumented workers cross the border to help US out of this conundrum!
<Sarcasm setting >
Is being a middle-aged white male considered a disability now? It ought to be.
Good News!
There's hardly any jobs left to lose!
Eventually they will be reporting 100% employment and still have ZIRP + QEx. They're obviously covering something up that we can't see....
Didn't IBM announce plans to lay off 100,000 recently?
IBM? HaHaHa... that Warren Buffet guy is the shit! i watch what he's doing..
No state had more than a 1,000 increase and the number of Continuing claims is at a 16 year low only 2.39 million people are collecting. Also, consumer confidence has jumped to over 102... It sure shows at the mall and stores. The malls are packed especially these nouveau rich yuppie 'lifestyle centers'.. Those in eastern Mass must have heard of the new 'Assembly Row' which cannot keep up with the demand from retailers for space, Legacy place (where it is impossible to find a parking space if you go on a weekend, and the Burlington mall --- all have reported booming sales and demand)
If the workforce is only 100,000 people and only 5,000 are unemployed then you have a 5.0% UE rate.
That your nation has 335 million people does not matter, right? Your UE rate is still good!
Nicely put.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11358316/Central-bank-prophet-fears-QE-warfare-pushing-world-financial-system-out-of-control.html
Mr. William White said Quantitative Easing (QE) is a disguised form of competitive devaluation. "The Japanese are now doing it as well but nobody can complain because the US started it," he said.
"There is a significant risk that this is going to end badly because the Bank of Japan is funding 40pc of all government spending. This could end in high inflation, perhaps even hyperinflation.
"The emerging markets got on the bandwagon by resisting upward pressure on their currencies and building up enormous foreign exchange reserves. The wrinkle this time is that corporations in these countries - especially in Asia and Latin America - have borrowed $6 trillion in US dollars, often through offshore centres. That is going to create a huge currency mismatch problem as US rates rise and the dollar goes back up."
Mr. White's warnings are ominous. He acquired great authority in his long years at the BIS arguing that global central banks were falling into a trap by holding real rates too low in the 1990s, effectively stealing growth from the future through "intertemporal" effects.
He argues that this created a treacherous dynamic. The authorities kept having to push rates lower with the trough of each cycle, building up ever greater imbalances, in an ineluctable descent to the "zero bound", where monetary levers stop working properly.
Under his guidance, the BIS annual reports over the three years before the Lehman crisis were a rising crescendo of alarm calls at a time when other global watchdogs were asleep. His legendary report in June 2008 openly discussed whether the world was on the cusp of events that might prove as dangerous and intractable as the Great Depression, as it indeed it was.
Mr White said central banks have been put in an invidious position, compelled to respond to a deep economic disorder that is beyond their power. The latest victim is the Swiss National Bank, which was effectively crushed last week by greater global forces as it tried to repel safe-haven flows into the franc. The SNB was damned whatever it tried to do. "The only choice they had was to take a blow to the left cheek, or to the right cheek," he said.
He deplores the rush to QE as an "unthinking fashion". Those who argue that the US and the UK are growing faster than Europe because they carried out QE early are confusing "correlation with causality". The Anglo-Saxon pioneers have yet to pay the price. "It ain't over until the fat lady sings. There are serious side-effects building up and we don't know what will happen when they try to reverse what they have done."
The painful irony is that central banks may have brought about exactly what they most feared by trying to keep growth buoyant at all costs, he argues, and not allowing productivity gains to drive down prices gently as occurred in episodes of the 19th century. "They have created so much debt that they may have turned a good deflation into a bad deflation after all."
So possibilities:
- jobs are great give them the chocolate cake.
- comments section had alot of 'fewer layoffs in waste management'.
- comments section had alot of no comments. This could be worrisome.
Did we just witness a collapse in participation rate?
- fewer jobs qualify for unimployment insurance, thus even if layoffs occur, no claims will be filed
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/demand-workers-not-robots-005500808.html
On-demand workers: ‘We are not robots’this is where many of the unemployed have migrated to. Part time for all sorts of industries including UBER taxi driving.
Sure, ruin your career by taking some 'make work' low skill job like Uber, Wal mart, Mcdonalds.. How do you put that on your Resume and explain to the hiring manager or recruiter why you haven't been able to find work in your field (if you even make it to an interview)???
Unemployed? Who?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-will-spend-over-14-billion-on...
Something positive? in the US Economy? noooooo,..,.can't be,,
say it isn't so ZH, Say it isnt so!!!
what will we do??!!! what will we talk about?
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/eurozone-needs-more-than-qe-by-martin-feldstein-2015-01
First, though, consider why QE’s ability to stimulate growth and employment in the US does not imply that it will succeed in the eurozone. QE’s effect on demand in the US reflected the financial-market conditions that prevailed when the Federal Reserve began its large-scale asset purchases in 2008. At that time, the interest rate on ten-year Treasury bonds was close to 4%. The Fed’s aggressive program of bond-buying and its commitment to keep short-term interest rates low for a prolonged period drove the long-term rate down to about 1.5%.
The sharp fall in long-term rates induced investors to buy equities, driving up share prices. Low mortgage interest rates also spurred a recovery in house prices. In 2013, the broad Standard and Poor’s index of equity prices rose by 30%. The combination of higher equity and house prices raised households’ net worth in 2013 by $10 trillion, equivalent to about 60% of that year’s GDP.
That, in turn, led to a rise in consumer spending, prompting businesses to increase production and hiring, which meant more incomes and therefore even more consumer spending. As a result, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP growth accelerated to 4% in the second half of 2013. After a weather-related pause in the first quarter of 2014, GDP continued to grow at an annual rate of more than 4%.
Thus, QE’s success in the US reflected the Fed’s ability to drive down long-term interest rates. In contrast, long-term interest rates in the eurozone are already extremely low, with ten-year bond rates at about 50 basis points in Germany and France and only 150 basis points in Italy and Spain.
So the key mechanism that worked in the US will not work in the eurozone. Driving down the euro’s dollar exchange rate from its $1.15 level (where it was before the adoption of QE) to parity or even lower will help, but it probably will not be enough.