More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

[c1ue]

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/e...ta20091337.htm

In the week ending Oct. 31, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 512,000, a decrease of 20,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 532,000.

...

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 480,178 in the week ending Oct. 31, a decrease of 14,216 from the previous week. There were 466,341 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

There you have it. We have more claims filed than 1 year ago, but things are getting better?

[FRED]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/e...ta20091337.htm



There you have it. We have more claims filed than 1 year ago, but things are getting better?

We are mystified by the Fed charts of the BLS data.

If 466,341 initial claims were filed in the comparable week in 2008 versus 512,000 in 2009, why do the data show a decrease?

[jk]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

We are mystified by the Fed charts of the BLS data.

If 466,341 initial claims were filed in the comparable week in 2008 versus 512,000 in 2009, why do the data show a decrease?

they don't show a decrease. they show an increase of between 0 and 100,000.

[Chomsky]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

they don't show a decrease. they show an increase of between 0 and 100,000.

Right, they show a slowing increase.

[metalman]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

Right, they show a slowing increase.

a declining rate of increase... like after every recession.

it's 2002 all over again... but w/o the housing bubble.

oh, and gold's $1K not $250... but who's counting?

happy days are here again!

[we_are_toast]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

I really dislike year over year charts, they distort any relevance to what we might view as a norm over the long term.

Here's the same data presented in a slightly smoothed form.



The year over year makes it look like things are getting back to normal, the rawer data tells a different story.

[Quincy K]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

What's so hard to understand here? Things are continuing to get worse from last year but getting better from last week.

This with a quadrillion dollars worth of stimulus and free money.

If any of you naysayers had any balls, you would stop complaining and start going short here if you were so sure of the inevitable collapse in CRE and the economy.

[c1ue]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

Unemployment just hit 10.2%

This is higher than the 'consensus' (of morons) predicted unemployment would PEAK at...next year. And this is only October - prime Thanksgiving and Xmas layoff season coming up.

Clearly the spin and the reality are opposite.

[don]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

I'm bracketed by two neighbors, both of whom are experiencing not unemployment but significant work adjustments related to the general malaise.

One, a teacher, has been told her hours will be halved in January. She lives alone, in a house she purchased many years ago. She did not drink the refi Kool-Aid but feels she may not be able to keep making her payments nevertheless.

On the other side is a city worker. She been offered an early out of her job at fire rescue. Twenty positions are set to be lost through attrition.

I would wager the number of early out incentives are significant across the country- another unemployment statistic that is meant to be left invisible.

[c1ue]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

I would wager the number of early out incentives are significant across the country- another unemployment statistic that is meant to be left invisible.

Absolutely - that is why looking at the actual number of jobs is also interesting.

From the BLS.gov database:

Year	Oct	Annual
1999	130803	128993
2000	133007	131785
2001	132072	131826
2002	131227	130341
2003	131045	129999
2004	133050	131435
2005	135260	133703
2006	137475	136086
2007	138786	137598
2008	137492	137066
2009	132040(P)

To paraphrase EJ: roughly 6M fictitious jobs were created by the housing boom, now these are being given back. Throw in some additional job losses due to offshoring, to retail scale back, to productivity increases, and you get a very ugly picture.

This is even disregarding the approx. 11.8% population hence workforce growth in that 10 year period (272.69M to 305M) - an employment figure equivalent to population growth should be over 144 million jobs.

Or put another way - it is more than possible that we will end this year with the same or fewer jobs as 9 years ago.

[Jay]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

On the other side is a city worker. She been offered an early out of her job at fire rescue. Twenty positions are set to be lost through attrition.

Towns are under tremendous fiscal pressures now, this will accelerate. Be prepared to see a lot of union fights with city hall.

[don]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

Towns are under tremendous fiscal pressures now, this will accelerate. Be prepared to see a lot of union fights with city hall.

And the city in question boasted as little as 9 months ago that it was "fiscally solid", not a financial train wreck "like Vallejo". Events are proving they were just farther from shore, as the tsunami continues to roll in.

[goadam1]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

Absolutely - that is why looking at the actual number of jobs is also interesting.

From the BLS.gov database:



To paraphrase EJ: roughly 6M fictitious jobs were created by the housing boom, now these are being given back. Throw in some additional job losses due to offshoring, to retail scale back, to productivity increases, and you get a very ugly picture.

This is even disregarding the approx. 11.8% population hence workforce growth in that 10 year period (272.69M to 305M) - an employment figure equivalent to population growth should be over 144 million jobs.

Or put another way - it is more than possible that we will end this year with the same or fewer jobs as 9 years ago.

A tremendous amount of money was spent to keep housing prices whole. A whole hole. Hurray for assets and banks! But no new jobs. Where would the jobs come from?

You describe picture perfectly.

Why is there the political will to make the banks whole or expand the war but not to put people to work on a new grid?

[Sharky]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

Based on news reports and anecdotal information, I suspect that one thing that's happening is that in anticipation of a near-term recovery, many employers are cutting back employee hours instead of laying them off. Someone who works 10 or 20 hours less per week is not technically unemployed.

[touchring]

Re: More fun with unemployment numbers: week of October 31

Based on news reports and anecdotal information, I suspect that one thing that's happening is that in anticipation of a near-term recovery, many employers are cutting back employee hours instead of laying them off. Someone who works 10 or 20 hours less per week is not technically unemployed.

There are lots of tricks they use to cut costs over here. Like asking workers to go for 1 year "no pay leave". This is like laying without paying compensation. Or cutting pay by 30% - a few dudes will resign voluntarily.