Tag Archives: Bureau of Labor Statistics

First-time claims for unemployment insurance fell 9,000 to 363,000 for the week ended October 27, the Labor Department reported Thursday. It was the second straight weekly decline and the fourth drop in the last six weeks. The initial claims report has been unusually volatile for the last month, with wide swings in the seasonal adjustment factors used by the Labor Department to "normalize" the data. The seasonal adjustment for next week's report will be "unfavorable," bumping first-time claims higher.

Led by increases in personal consumption, government spending, and residential investment, the US economy grew 2.0 percent in the third quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday, faster than economists expected and a strong rebound from the 1.3 percent growth rate in the second quarter. While not an absolutely strong performance, the improvement over the second quarter bolsters arguments that current economic policies are working. Growth is below the longer-term 2.5 percent average, though, indicating a still-weak economy.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance fell 23,000 to 369,000 for the week ended October 20, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected initial claims to fall to 372,000. The initial claims report has been unusually volatile for the last month with wide swings in the seasonal adjustment factors used by the Labor Department to "normalize" the data. However, the factor used for this week's report was virtually the same as the factor used a week ago, suggesting the sharp drop in claims reflects a truer reading of the labor market.

First time claims for unemployment insurance shot up 46,000 to 388,000--the highest level since July--for the week ending October 13, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists expected initial claims to bounce back up to 365,000 after seasonal factors drove the number of claims down to the lowest level in 54 months. The weekly increase was the steepest since the end of January 2009, when claims soared 53,000 in one week. Since claims reports are usually revised upward the "final" claims total will likely end up as the highest since January.

Experts across the country wasted no time in responding to Friday's unemployment report, and the responses ranged from celebration to healthy skepticism. As pundits waged a war over the significance of the report, Capital Economics focused its view less on politics and more on its own breakdown of the data, noting that while the growth was modest, the overall report was encouraging. Wall Street also reacted, with banks and construction firms seeing stock upticks.

The nation's unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent in September--the lowest level since January 2009--as the economy added a below-average 114,000 jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday. The 0.3 percentage point improvement in the unemployment rate is the largest since January 2011, when the unemployment rate dropped from 9.4 percent to 9.1 percent.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance edged up by 4,000 to 367,000 for the week ended September 29, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The previous week's report was revised upward to 363,000 first time claims from the originally reported 359,000. Although initial claims appear to have plateaued (occasional weather-related spikes notwithstanding) first time claims fell in only five weeks during the third quarter, with a wide range: As high as 388,000 in the week following the July 4 holiday week and 385,000 in each of the two weeks following Hurricane Isaac, but as low as 352,000 when the quarter began.

When the September employment situation report is released Friday, one number will loom large: Not the number of new payroll jobs--expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg to be about 113,000├â┬ó├óÔÇÜ┬¼├óÔé¼┼ôand not the unemployment rate (expected to be 8.1 percent), but 386,000. That's the number of jobs added to the nation's payrolls not by employers, but by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in its annual "benchmarking" of payroll data.

Shaking off the effects of Hurricane Isaac, first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell 26,000 to 359,000 for the week ended September 22, according to findings from the Labor Department. Falling far below market expectations, the report followed revisions to the previous week's survey, which was adjusted upward to 385,000 first-time claims off of the originally reported 382,000. Economists had predicted a smaller figure for first-time claims, anticipating around 376,000.

Existing home sales rose 7.8 percent to 4.82 million in August the highest level since May 2010 the National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday. The median price of an existing single in August was $187,400, down $400 from July but up $16,200 or 9.5 percent from August 2011. Economists had expected the sale pace to be 4.55 million. The percentage gain in sales was the strongest since last August when sales improved 8.9 percent month-over-month, the strongest month-month gain of the year.