New unemployment claims fall, but continuing claims reach a new high

Posted Jul 9th 2009 12:20PM by Connie Madon
Filed under: Economic Data, Personal Finance, Recession

There is more conflicting data on the unemployment front. The good news is that new jobless claims fell by 52,000 to 565,000 in the past week. The four-week average fell to 608,000, down 10,000.

Now the bad news. The number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits rose to 6.88 million, a new high.

These numbers are confusing to say the least, leaving open speculation on both sides that the recession has ended. Economist John Ryding at RDQ Economics says that the recession may have ended in the second quarter.

In an opposing view, Joshua Shapiro, economist at MFR, feels that it is unlikely that new hiring has risen. More likely is that long-term recipients have fallen off the rolls, distorting the numbers.

The states of New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Kansas reported an increase in claims, while Florida, Illinois, and Pennsylvania reported fewer claims.

While some of this news is encouraging, we need to see the number of new claimants falling off sharply and new hiring spiking up. In past recessions, this has been the way we've climbed up and out. We are not seeing this now, which leads me to remain neutral to bearish on the job front.

When do you expect to see new hiring rise sharply?

Tags: hiring, inthenews, jobless claims, John Ryding, Joshua Shapiro, recession, unemployment

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-09-2009 @ 2:42PM

Rick said...

Never any data/mention of those who have fallen off the government gravy train all together and totally given up looking for work. I'm an eternal optimist but boy this unemployment number is probably in the 14% range counting everybody.

7-10-2009 @ 5:07AM

al coholic said...

government statistics are simply not relevant anymore. When they are compiled they are tweaked to death making comparisons to earlier times meaningless.

Another fly in the ointment that renders our government statistics unreliable is the enormous portion of our economy that is totally underground and flies under the radar. I have heard estimates as high as 25-30% of the entire economy these days.