Jobless claims are at an all time high. However, the number of new jobless claims got a small reprieve recently. For the last year, employment within the United States of America has been awful. However, the usual holiday employment increase and an additional increase from the U.S. census hiring people made things a little better. Less jobless claims is welcome good news, even if real estate is set to be read the last rites. The unemployment rate is virtually unchanged since November 2009, so this happy news is an empty victory if anything. On the plus side, it did cheer up stock markets. There was a slight boost on Wall Street as a result.
Small reduction in new unemployed cases
There was a decrease in brand new unemployed claims for unemployment benefits, says the Department of Labor. The quantity of unemployed claims dropped 31,000 to a seasonally adjusted 473,000 since last week. That’s encouraging, but the past four weeks average to 486,750. As outlined by Forbes, that’s the highest since November 2009. However, the drop in unemployment claims in winter was due to seasonal employment only, as Thanksgiving through Christmas are what the entire retail year revolves around. The United States Census also employed a fair amount of people seasonally.
Stock market offered a lift
As outlined by the Wall Street Journal, the news did some urgent good. It gave stock markets a very modest increase. The uptick was modest at best; the greatest gain was a .3 percent boost for Standard and Poor’s. The Nasdaq climbed only .2 percent, and also the Dow Jones managed a paltry .1 percent gain. The big news on Wall Street recently has nothing to do with unemployment cases though. The big story right now is the bidding wars for 3Par, which Dell seems to be winning. There’s a big bidding war going on, and it’s even bigger news than the Potash saga. Hewlett Packard and Dell are fighting it out for 3Par, and it’s causing a huge firestorm of coverage.
Very little progress
This is not really an indicator of much within the way of unemployment radically decreasing. Fewer employers are presently hiring. Real estate shows few signs of life, and it is believed that up to 10 percent of all homeowners may have foreclosure as a significant possibility in their future.
Further reading
Forbes
forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/08/26/real-estate-industrials-us-economy_7879865.html
Wall Street Journal
online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100826-709681.html
