New jobless claims rise unexpectedly to 627K

New jobless claims rise unexpectedly to 627K
New jobless claims jump unexpectedly to 627,000; continuing claims rise to 6.74 million

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans filing new jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week, and the total unemployment benefit rolls rose to more than 6.7 million.
The Labor Department data released Thursday show jobs remain scarce even as the economy shows some signs of recovering from the longest recession since World War II.

The department said initial claims for jobless benefits rose last week by 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 627,000. Economists expected a drop to 600,000, according to Thomson Reuters.
Several states reported more claims than expected from teachers, cafeteria workers and other school employees, a department analyst said.
The number of people continuing to receive unemployment insurance rose by 29,000 to 6.74 million, slightly above analysts' estimates of 6.7 million.
The four-week average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations, was largely unchanged, at 616,750.
Economists expect the number of initial unemployment insurance claims, which reflects the level of layoffs, to slowly decline over the coming months as the economy bottoms out.

Stocks open lower after rise in jobless claims
Stocks open lower after surprise increase in last week's jobless claims

NEW YORK (AP) -- An unexpected rise in jobless claims is causing investors to sell again.
The government says new jobless claims rose by 15,000 to 627,000 last week. The market had been expecting a decline. Unemployment affects many drivers of the economy -- most importantly, consumer spending.

Uncertainty about when the economy will turn around, and how fast it will grow when it finally does, have weighed on the market this month. The Dow Jones industrial average remains up 26.8 percent from its 12-year low hit on March 9, but is down about 5.7 percent from a June 12 high.

In the first few minutes of trading, the Dow is down 19 to 8,280. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is down 2 to 898, while the Nasdaq composite index is down 8 to 1,783.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Stocks-open-lower-after-rise-apf-15617326.html?x=1&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=

New jobless claims drop more than expected; retail sales rise for first time in 3 months

New jobless claims drop to 601K; retail sales rise
New jobless claims drop more than expected; retail sales rise for first time in 3 months

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly laid-off Americans filing jobless claims fell more than expected last week and retail sales grew in May for the first time in three months. But a rise in the number of people continuing to receive jobless aid signaled that an economic recovery is still far off.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week by 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 601,000. That's below analysts' estimates of 615,000.
Still, the number of people claiming benefits for more than a week rose by 59,000 to more than 6.8 million, the highest on records dating to 1967. The department also revised last week's data on continuing claims, replacing what had been a drop of 15,000 with an increase of 6,000.

That means continuing claims have set records for 19 straight weeks. The data lag initial claims by a week.
Retail sales rose for the first time in three months in May, as a rebound in demand at auto dealerships and gas stations helped offset weakness at department stores. The Commerce Department said retail sales increased by 0.5 percent last month, in line with economists' expectations. It was the largest increase since sales rose 1.7 percent in January following six straight declines.

Excluding autos, retail sales also grew 0.5 percent in May, better than the 0.2 percent gain that economists had expected.
Consumers may be spending a bit more and layoffs may be slowing, but companies are reluctant to hire amid the longest recession since World War II. That makes it harder for the unemployed to find work.
Jobless claims are a measure of the pace of layoffs and are seen as a timely, if volatile, indicator of the economy's health.
The four-week average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations, fell to 621,750, down from a high of about 658,000 in early April. Many economists see the decline as a sign that layoffs have peaked and the recession is bottoming out.
Still, the levels are far above what is customary in a healthy economy. Initial claims stood at 388,000 a year ago. Read Article...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/New-jobless-claims-drop-to-apf-15499914.html;_ylt=AnFrSL.4kfVt62DWnohZ9mm7YWsA?sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=

US stock futures soar on fewer job losses

US stock futures soar on fewer job losses
Wall Street heads to higher open as report says employers cut fewer-than-expected jobs in May

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. stock futures surged Friday as investors cheered a government report that said employers cut fewer jobs than expected last month.

The Labor Department said 345,000 jobs were lost in May, significantly less than the half-million job losses economists had been expecting and the fewest job losses since September.

However, the unemployment rate surged to a slightly higher-than-expected 9.4 percent from 8.9 percent in April, proving that companies are still reluctant to hire back laid off workers.
But investors looked beyond the higher unemployment rate and instead took the slower pace of layoffs for a fourth month in a row as a sign that unemployment is stabilizing.

Unemployment has been one of the most closely watched gauges of the economy's health throughout the recession. Rising job losses affect vast areas of the economy, including consumer spending, retail sales and the housing market.

Ahead of the market's open, Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 113, or 1.3 percent, to 8,843, after being up about 33 points prior to the report. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures jumped 13.70, or 1.5 percent, to 954.20, while Nasdaq 100 index futures gained 14.25, or 1.0 percent, to 1,507.25.

Pace of layoffs expected to slow, but jobless rate likely rose above 9 percent in May

Despite fewer cuts, May jobless rate seen rising
Pace of layoffs expected to slow, but jobless rate likely rose above 9 percent in May

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With companies in no mood to hire, the unemployment rate is still rising. But the furious pace of layoffs is easing as the recession loosens its hold on the country.
The Labor Department on Friday is slated to release a report expected to show that a net total of 520,000 jobs were lost in May. If economists are right, the figure would mark the second straight month that job losses slowed. It also would be the fewest job reductions since October.
"A loss of that many jobs is bad, but would be taken as a sign that the heavy weights on the economy and the labor market seem to be diminishing a bit," said Steven Cochrane, managing director of Moody's Economy.com.

The deepest job cuts of the recession came in January when 741,000 jobs disappeared, the most since 1949.
Job losses averaged 700,000 a month in the first quarter but dropped to 539,000 in April. They should average around 500,000 in the current quarter and taper off to 250,000 per month in the final quarter of this year, according to some projections. Read Article...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Despite-fewer-cuts-May-apf-15446726.html

Bernanke: Recovery will be slow

Bernanke: Recovery will be slow
(01:23) Report Reuters Video

June 3. - Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke says the weak labor market and the continued tightness of credit will slow the economic recovery's pace.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers on Wednesday (June 3) that data shows the economic contraction may be slowing, but unemployment will continue to rise for some time."We expect to see some growth -- not robust growth -- but some positive growth later this year," Bernanke said.Bernanke said he still anticipates that the economy will start its recovery later this year, but cautioned that "we will have a weak labor market for some time."
NOTE: Original sound only, no reporter narration.

Unemployment in U.S. Probably Climbed in March to 25-Year High

Unemployment in U.S. Probably Climbed in March to 25-Year High

April 3 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. jobless rate rose in March to the highest level in 25 years and payrolls plunged, exposing the economy to the risk of renewed declines in spending that would scuttle a recovery, economists said before a report today.

Unemployment jumped to 8.5 percent from 8.1 percent in February, according to the median of 79 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. The figures may also show employers cut 660,000 workers from staff, bringing total losses since the recession began to 5 million, the biggest slump in the postwar era.

Evaporating jobs and declining pay mean President Barack Obama’s pledge to create or save 3.5 million jobs through tax cuts and government spending may fall short of what’s needed to revive the world’s largest economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has conceded joblessness could top 10 percent under a worst-case scenario.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoxQ7YAvdMfU&refer=home

Depression 2009: What would it look like?

A modern landscape of scarcity. Depression 2009: What would it look like?

The financial crisis tearing through Wall Street is routinely described as the worst since the Great Depression, and the recession into which we are sinking looks deep enough, financial commentators warn, that a few poor policy decisions could put us in a depression of our own.
Most of us, of course, think we know what a depression looks like. Open a history book and the images will be familiar: mobs at banks and lines at soup kitchens, stockbrokers in suits selling apples on the street, families piled with all their belongings into jalopies. Families scrimp on coffee and flour and sugar, rinsing off tinfoil to reuse it and re-mending their pants and dresses. A desperate government mobilizes legions of the unemployed to build bridges and airports, to blaze trails in national forests, to put on traveling plays and paint social-realist murals.
Today, however, whatever a depression would look like, that's not it. We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological, and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that.

What, then, would we see instead? And how would we even know a depression had started? It's not a topic that professional observers of the economy study much. And there's no single answer, because there's no one way a depression might unfold. But it's nonetheless an important question to consider - there's no way to make informed decisions about the present without understanding, in some detail, the worst-case scenario about the future.
By looking at what we know about how society and commerce would slow down, and how people respond, it's possible to envision what we might face. Unlike the 1930s, when food and clothing were far more expensive, today we spend much of our money on healthcare, child care, and education, and we'd see uncomfortable changes in those parts of our lives. The lines wouldn't be outside soup kitchens but at emergency rooms, and rather than itinerant farmers we could see waves of laid-off office workers leaving homes to foreclosure and heading for areas of the country where there's more work - or just a relative with a free room over the garage. Already hollowed-out manufacturing cities could be all but deserted, and suburban neighborhoods left checkerboarded, with abandoned houses next to overcrowded ones.