August 25, 2005
EMPLOYED PEOPLE BUY HOMES:
Jobless Claims Drop by 4,000 Last Week (Martin Crutsinger, 8/25/05, The Associated Press)
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits declined last week with the four-week average for people receiving benefits dropping to the lowest level in more than four years.The Labor Department reported that 315,000 newly laid off workers applied for jobless benefits, a decline of 4,000 from the previous week, providing further evidence that solid economic growth is showing up in an improving labor market.
The four-week average for the total number of people receiving benefits dipped to 2.58 million last week, the lowest level for this figure since March 2001, the month the last recession began.
The drop of 4,000 benefit applications last week was slightly better than economists had been forecasting. Since early January, claims levels have remained well below 350,000 at levels that analysts view as signaling a healthy labor market.
Except that it wasn't a recession, just a period of low growth. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 25, 2005 1:56 PM
Where you guys all miss it is here: it's the quality of the people being let go that counts. If you saw a headline that said 100,000 more PhDs were seeing work last month than the month before all hell would break loose. Congress would be in 24 hour sessions, Bush would leave Crawford faster than Cindy Sheehan left her poor old mom to get back to Texas. Me? I'd love it if half the faculties in half the universities got laid off tomorrow. Love it.
Posted by: Howard Veit at August 25, 2005 3:47 PMA Ph.D myself, I am reassured that Congress would work in my behalf. But yes I see your point, Howard. My question is this: what percentage of the population is either 1.) incapable of holding down a job (for whatever reason) or 2.) simply does not want to hold down a job? Another question is this: When and where has there ever been full employment?
Posted by: Wyck at August 25, 2005 4:34 PMWe have full employment. We have tons of jobs open.
Posted by: oj at August 25, 2005 4:40 PMIn my house when my wife works there's full emplooyment....
Posted by: Howard Veit at August 25, 2005 4:40 PMHere's Cohen's Leading Economic Indicator: the strength of the economy varies inversely with the quality of service at drive-up windows.
Wendy's really screwed up my order yesterday.
Posted by: David Cohen at August 25, 2005 5:58 PMFull employment is considered to exist within a range of "frictional unemployment" - the voluntary unemployed changing jobs, not people who would work if they could, but were laid off. It was thought anything lower than that would lead to inflationary pressure. Typically it was at the 3% mark, but the 90's boom pushed that to 1% or so.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at August 25, 2005 7:10 PM