Thursday, September 25, 2014

Weekly Unemployment Claims: Initial and Continued September 25 2014

Today’s jobless claims report showed an increase to both initial and continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial claims remained below the closely watched 300K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims increased 12,000 to 293,000 claims from 281,000 claims for the prior week while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 7,000 to 2.439 million resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 1.8%.


Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Industrial Production: August 2014

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve released their monthly read of industrial production and capacity utilization showing a decrease in August with total industrial production falling 0.10% since July but still rising 4.12% above the level seen in August 2013.

Capacity utilization also declined falling 0.37% from July but rising 1.23% above the level seen in August 2013 to stand at 78.81%


Friday, September 05, 2014

Employment Situation: Nonfarm Payrolls and Civilian Unemployment August 2014

Today's Employment Situation Report indicated that in August, net non-farm payrolls increased by 142,000 jobs overall with the private non-farm payrolls sub-component adding 134,000 jobs while the civilian unemployment rate declined to 6.1% over the same period.

Net private sector jobs increased 0.11% since last month climbing 2.12% above the level seen a year ago and climbing 1.34% above the peak level of employment seen in December 2007 prior to the Great Recession.

Employment Situation: Total Unemployment August 2014

Today's Employment Situation report showed that in August “total unemployment” including all marginally attached workers declined to 12.0% while the traditionally reported unemployment rate also fell to 6.1%.

The traditional unemployment rate is calculated from the monthly household survey results using a fairly explicit definition of “unemployed” (essentially unemployed and currently looking for full time employment) leaving many workers to be considered effectively “on the margin” either employed in part time work when full time is preferred or simply unemployed and no longer looking for work.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers “marginally attached” workers (including discouraged workers) and persons who have settled for part time employment to be “underutilized” labor.

The broadest view of unemployment would include both traditionally unemployed workers and all other underutilized workers.

To calculate the “total” rate of unemployment we would simply use this larger group rather than the smaller and more restrictive “unemployed” group used in the traditional unemployment rate calculation.