Wed, 11/17/2010 - 07:26 by Prince damin
Washington -- U.S. producers paid 0.4 percent more for finished goods in October compared to September due to rising energy prices, the U.S. Labor Department said Tuesday.
On a 12-month basis prices are up 4.3 percent, up from 4 percent a month ago and 3.1 percent in August.
For producers, core prices in June -- prices excluding food and energy costs -- fell 0.6 percent, while energy prices rose 3.7 percent, the highest since January.
Prices for finished food fell 0.1 percent, falling fifth time in the past seven months, the report said.
Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
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Thu, 07/15/2010 - 22:41 by Inderjit Singh
Washington -- U.S. producers paid 0.5 percent less for finished goods in June compared to May, largely due to falling food prices, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.
Prices for producers fell for the third consecutive month and for the fourth month this year. The report was issued a day after minutes of the latest Federal Reserve Open Market Committee policy meeting said some members of the committee had "cited some risk of deflation," which stalls the economy as consumers wait to make purchases with prices headed lower.
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Fri, 04/30/2010 - 10:06 by Rakhi
Washington -- Federal stimulus funds that helped young people find jobs last summer is dwindling, the U.S. Labor Department said.
About three-quarters of $1.2 billion in federal stimulus funds used to create jobs and training programs has been spent, the department said.
Stateline.org reported Thursday that the funding that helped put 320,000 teenagers to work last summer at a variety of jobs will be far more scarce this year than it was a year ago.
The lack of funds could mean a lack of jobs for many in an economy that has not seen a significant recovery in jobs from the recent recession or even in the past 10 years.
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Tue, 01/12/2010 - 19:26 by Inderjit Singh
New York -- The U.S. labor market is losing jobs it may have lost with or without a recession, which abruptly accelerated some long established trends, economists said.
As a relatively small example, the Labor Department said jobs in record shops had fallen 23 percent in November compared with 2007, while photofinishing jobs had declined 46 percent -- both victims of the digital age, not economic turmoil, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
On a larger scale, U.S. manufacturing jobs have been in decline since 1997.
In the housing boom that started roughly at that time, many laid off manufacturing personnel turned to construction jobs, which suddenly shed 1.6 million jobs beginning two years ago.
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Thu, 12/03/2009 - 22:24 by Inderjit Singh
Washington -- The U.S. Labor Department said non-farm productivity shot up in the third quarter, but less than it estimated a month ago.
The initial estimate released in November put productivity up 9.5 percent on an annual basis, the fastest growth rate in six years.
On Thursday, the department said productivity rose 8.1 percent, a 1.4 percentage point revision that still marks the largest gain since the third quarter of 2003.
In the second quarter, productivity rose 6.4 percent. At the time, that was the largest gain since 2003, when productivity rose 9.7 percent in the third quarter.
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Sat, 11/07/2009 - 19:20 by Inderjit Singh
Washington -- The levels of U.S. unemployment and underemployment announced this week has made it official that joblessness is worse than in the early 1980s, analysts say.
Figures released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department showed more than one out of every six workers -- 17.5 percent -- were unemployed or underemployed in October, eclipsing the record-high total of 17.1 percent in December 1982 -- which were the worst figures since the Great Depression, The New York Times reported.
The broad figures included those who are officially unemployed -- set at 10.2 percent -- as well as "discouraged workers," or those who have looked in the past year and millions of part-time workers who would rather be working full time, the newspaper said.
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Fri, 08/14/2009 - 20:37 by Inderjit Singh
Washington -- U.S. consumer prices held flat in July, marking another month in which inflation need not worry shoppers or policy makers, the Labor Department said.
Prices for all items remained unchanged in July. For core prices, which exclude food and energy items, prices rose 0.1 percent.
Energy prices declined 0.4 percent in the month, while food prices fell 0.3 percent.
Costs for housing fell 0.2 percent, while transportation costs gained 0.2 percent. Healthcare costs also rose 0.2 percent.
In the past 12 months, prices have fallen 2.1 percent, largely due to the price of oil, which was more $147 per barrel last summer and under $50 per barrel at the start of the year.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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Thu, 07/16/2009 - 01:08 by surajdogra
Washington -- The unemployment rate peaks above 20 percent in four states when two classes of marginalized workers are taken into account, the U.S. Labor Department said.
Add the number of part-time workers who would prefer full-time employment and those who have given up looking for work and the unemployment rate reaches 23.5 percent in Oregon, more than one in every five workers, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
In Michigan and Rhode Island, the unemployment rate with the two extra groups added would reach 21.5 percent. In California, it would reach 20.3 percent.
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Fri, 07/03/2009 - 03:01 by Salinder Kumar
New York -- Crude oil prices fell sharply to under $67 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday as increased unemployment rattled hope for a quick recovery.
The U.S. Labor Department said unemployment rose from 9.4 percent to 9.5 percent in June, triggering a sharp downturn in U.S. stock markets.
Crude oil prices fell $2.84 to $66.36 per barrel. Heating oil prices lost 0.067 cents to $1.698 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline fell 0.078 cents to $1.783 per gallon. Natural gas prices fell 0.141 cents to $3.644 per million British thermal units.
At the pump, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $2.629 Thursday, down from Wednesday's $2.63 a gallon, AAA said.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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Thu, 07/02/2009 - 18:54 by Inderjit Singh
Washington -- The U.S. Labor Department said unemployment climbed to 9.5 percent in June, an increase that was not as severe as economists predicted.
The country lost 467,000 non-farm jobs in the month, the department said Thursday. Economists had predicted joblessness would edge higher to 9.6 percent from its previous mark of 9.4 percent.
The healthcare sector provided the only positive news with 21,000 jobs added in the month, in line with its average monthly gain for 2009. Last year, healthcare averaged 30,000 additional jobs a month.
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Fri, 06/19/2009 - 23:20 by surajdogra
Washington -- The unemployment rate in California hit its highest level in more than 30 years, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday.
In May, as the national unemployment rate reached 9.4 percent, California's unemployment rate hit 11.5 percent, 4.7 percentage points above the 6.8 percent rate of May 2008, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The jobless rate in California was the fifth highest in the nation in May.
Michigan's rate, 14.1 percent, was the highest, followed by Oregon at 12.4 percent and Rhode Island and South Carolina with 12.1 percent each.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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Thu, 05/07/2009 - 19:35 by Inderjit Singh
Washington -- The U.S. Labor Department said non-farm productivity gained 0.8 percent in the first quarter due to hours of labor declining faster than output.
Productivity on its own dropped 8.2 percent, but hours-worked fell faster, dropping 9 percent, creating an 0.8 percent rise in productivity, as measured by the department.
Manufacturing productivity for durable goods declined sharply, down 10 percent. For non-durable goods, output shrank by 0.1 percent.
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