Feed
informationpile.com

Post Category

Post Date
Jul 03, 2008 10:24 a.m.

Article Structure
8 paragraphs
3806 characters
7 images
1 outgoing links

Sites mentioned
(click for rank details):

online.wsj.com

Next Article
Big Dirty Multi-Ethn ic Love Mess

Previous Article
IP HIDE 2.7

Economists React: ‘Consistent Picture of Weakness’ on Jobs

Source: http://www.informationpile.com/wall-street-journal...

Displaying mentions in this article, for full text please visit source.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls shrank for a sixth consecutive month, decreasing by 62,000 jobs in June while previous months were revised lower, as businesses retrenched in the face of rising costs and a weak economy. The month’s unemployment rate held at 5.5%, after rising sharply in May. Economists and others react to the data below.

[E]ven these dismal headline numbers do not tell the full story of the erosion in labor market conditions. Over the past year, the number of workers employed part-time for economic reasons has risen by 1.1 million and accounting for these workers and those who have given up looking for a job and left the labor force yields an unemployment rate of 9.9%, compared to 8.3% in June 2007. Also, job counts in many industries, most notably leisure & hospitality services, continue to be overstated thanks to the “birth-death” model employed by the BLS. It will not be until the annual benchmark revisions are released in January 2009 that the influence of the model … will be stripped out. – Richard F. Moody, Mission Residential

Today’s reports painted a consistent picture of weakness in the US labor market. … While tax rebates are currently plugging a hole in consumer finances, the continued deterioration in labor income growth and decline in household wealth suggests that healthy consumer spending figures are unlikely to be sustained. – Lehman U.S. Economics

This report, along with today’s jobless claims data [which rose by 16,000 to total 404,000, above the forecast of 385,000], suggest a significant pickup in the pace of deterioration in the labor market. The net job loss in June after factoring in revisions to April and May was 114,000, while the household survey showed a 155,000 job loss and no reversal of May’s sharp rise in unemployment — the unemployment rate in the 16- to 24-year old group fell back by only 1/5 of the amount it rose in May, suggesting that school-leavers are finding the summer jobs market challenging. – John Ryding, Conrad DeQuadros, RDQ Economics

Another report that underscores the increasing pressures on consumers from a weakening labor market on top of pre-existing woes of over-extended balance sheets, plunging housing prices, tight lending standards, and soaring energy prices. After the temporary and modest beneficial impact of tax rebate payments, consumers will have nothing left to fall back on, and the underlying trend of consumption growth will therefore weaken even further in the latter part of the year. – Joshua Shapiro, MFR Inc.

Feeds and posts are not affliated with ://URLFAN. They are displayed here simply for informational purposes, if you would like to remove your feed, posts, or domain from ranking and analysis, please contact us.