Money Matters, Simplified.
Unemployment claims drop in US
by Jaspreet Virk - April 30, 2010 - comments
In March, approximately 44 percent of those unemployed in the nation remained jobless for around 27 weeks, according to the figures released by Department of Labor.
In what can be termed as a sign of job market recovering in the nation, advance initial claims for unemployment insurance dropped in the nation for the week ended April 24, according to the data released by the Department of Labor.
The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims fell by 11,000 to 448,000 in this week. This is the lowest level achieved in the last four weeks.
Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, was quoted by BusinessWeek as saying, “The labor market continues to heal slowly. We should see another gain in private-sector payrolls for April. Renewed hiring will help sustain consumer spending this year.”
Analyzing claims in different states
The biggest drops in claims, for the week ended April 17, were reported by New York (-21,010) and California (-15,380). In New York, there were fewer workers terminated from the service and transportation sectors.
In California, fewer layoffs were reported by the service and manufacturing. Other states that witnessed a drop in layoffs were Pennsylvania (-4,512), Oregon (-4,317), and New Jersey (-3,777).
Though the initial claims for unemployment insurance fell in the week, four-week moving average of initial claims rose by 1,500 to 462,500.
The largest increase in initial claims were in Puerto Rico (+3,549), Iowa (+1,606), Georgia (+1,412), Connecticut (+768), and Florida (+422).
Even the number of continuing claims fell by 18,000 to 4.65 million for the week ended April 17.
Further, people now collecting emergency and extended payments, after utilizing their traditional benefits, fell 91,000 to 5.4 million for the week ended April 10.
Job market still volatile
Though the initial claims for unemployment insurance fell in the week, analysts believe that the job market is still fragile.
The four-week moving average of initial claims rose by 1,500 to 462,500. This moving average has increased for the past several weeks.
“We ultimately need to see claims break 400,000 to the downside to be comfortable that the large job gains we are forecasting are sustainable,” added Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities in New York.
Also, in March, approximately 44 percent of those unemployed in the nation remained jobless for around 27 weeks, according to the figures released by Department of Labor.
The unemployment rate in the nation has been 9.7 percent for three months consecutively.