Jobless claims are big news in the financial markets and can cause the stock market to move; politicians to scurry looking for new programs and claim to be able to create or "save" a certain number of jobs.

Just this week the Labor Department reported January unemployment dropped to 9.7%.

Well, this was a nice surprise ... the unemployment rate fell to 9.7% in January from 10% in December, according to the Labor Department. This is good news, as expectations were for the unemployment rate to hold at 10% -- so some people are finding some jobs somewhere.

That said, the number of nonfarm payrolls dropped by 20,000 while expectations called for a gain of 25,000. With stock futures limiting some of their early morning losses, it looks as if investors and analysts are holding on to the unemployment rate news rather than the news that more jobs were lost than expected.

The Commerce Department reported that factory orders for December rose more than expected. Here are the numbers:

• Orders for durable goods rose 1%. The government had estimated a rise of 0.3% for December. Durables last for several years.
• Bookings for capital goods, a measure of future business investment, rose 2.2%, after a rise of 3.2%.
• Shipments of those goods rose 2.1%. These shipments are used to calculate GDP.
• The economy expanded 5.7% in the fourth quarter, the fastest pace in six years.
• Purchases of equipment and software increased 13%, the highest since 2006.
• On the negative side, new claims for unemployment rose to 480,000.
• The Institute for Supply Management report showed manufacturing in January expanded at the fastest pace in five years.
• Greater demand for notebooks and desktop computers fueled record sales for hard drives.

While these numbers are tame, the fact that we have slow, steady progress increases business and consumer confidence.

Much of the change in the economy is psychological. As we see steady improvement quarter over quarter, confidence gets restored, business replenishes inventories and consumers are buying again.

Do you believe that we are on the road to recovery?

Futures have backed off a bit, thanks mainly to the Labor Department's latest report on initial jobless claims. The number of Americans claiming first-time unemployment benefits increased by 36,000 to 482,000.

This increase is greater than the expected drop to 438,000 and is the highest level of claims since November. This increase in claims breaks a streak of 19 straight declines.

Despite all the hype and wishful thinking, retail sales, reported Thursday morning, fell in December. This came as a surprise to analysts, many of whom forecasted increases of 2% or more, though there were some calling for declines of up to 3%. The holiday season wasn't enough to overcome cautious consumer spending, which has been driven largely by an unemployment rate that remains stubbornly high at 10%.

Data from the Commerce Department released Thursday puts the decline in retail sales from November to December at 0.3%, while expectations were for an increase of 0.5%. Excluding auto sales, the drop was 0.2%, still weaker than the 0.3% increase anticipated by analysts. This decline follows an increase of 1.2% in October and 1.8% in November. In September, retail sales fell 2% from August.

Despite some early concerns that the action would be slow, seasonal hiring spiked 42% for the retail sector in 2009.

Even though growth was modest -- and based on the depressed baseline set last year -- 547,400 holiday workers showed up at stores across the country to help handle the increased foot traffic and what eventually became a small gain in sales. A year earlier, holiday hiring fell to a 22-year low of 384,300, according to an analysis revealed to BloggingStocks by Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Across the pond, Eurostat announced Eurozone Unemployment hit 10% in November 2009 matching the rate reported for the U.S. in November 2009.

This pushes Europe into double digit unemployment.

Cue the alarms, the warning sirens, the panic and the bear stampede on the Street today ... the U.S. nonfarm payrolls dropped unexpectedly in December.

The good news? November nonfarm payrolls were actually revised higher, reflecting a gain of 4,000 jobs. Despite November's gain, payrolls dropped by 4.2 million in 2009, bringing the two-year total of job losses for the recession to 7.3 million. As for the official unemployment rate, it remained at 10% during December. That said, the data that includes discouraged workers and those forced to work part time increased to 17.3% from 17.2%. Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of the report was that there were "few signs of further improvement in labor conditions."

Here's some good news! Applications for unemployment insurance rose only by 1,000 to 434,000 in the week ended January 2.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the number to be nearer 447,000.

All eyes on on tomorrow's employment report. The labor market has shown strong signs of recovery with the pace of layoffs falling off sharply in recent weeks.

The job market looked grim at the beginning of 2009, but as we crossed into 2010, there seems to be a glimmer of hope. We still aren't seeing jobs added yet, but at least the cuts are headed in the right direction. Last month, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, announced layoffs fell 10% to 45,094. This is the lowest level seen since December 2007, exactly two years earlier, when there were only 44,416 job cuts. The most recent tally is also off 10% from November's 50,349, making it the fifth month in a row that layoffs have decreased. Since July, the stat has fallen 14% a month, on average.

The new year 2010 wastes no time in offering investors a "data point of consequence" -- the U.S. Labor Department's December 2009 monthly nonfarm payroll report, commonly known as the jobs report, scheduled to be released Friday January 8 at 8:30 a.m. EST.

It's a data point of note because job growth is the key to a sustained U.S. economic recovery and earnings growth: although the economy certainly can grow for a while without net monthly job gains (as it did in 2002), it's hard to envision a scenario in which the expansion continues for two, three, four or more years without job growth. And, by extension, job growth is intrinsic to both household formation, rising corporate revenue and stock prices. A Bloomberg News economists survey expects the U.S. economy to record zero job growth in December 2009, after losing a scant 11,000 jobs in November 2009.