Analyst sees 'healing' but rising unemployment
First-time claims for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level since January. T. Rowe Price ecnonomist Alan Levenson looks at the data. New claims fell by 12,000 to 502,000 last week. Continuing claims fell by 312,000 to 5.8 million. (That's for two weeks ago.)
Says Levenson:
Bottom line: Labor market healing trend continues into November, and the unemployment rate should reverse some of October's outsized gain. Nonetheless, the unemployment will tend to rise until monthly job growth is sufficient to absorb the flow of labor force entrance (roughly +110,000 per month); we don't expect a peak until mid-2010.
Comments
I think it is important to take a historical perspective on unemployment. I looked on the BLS and pulled data since 1948 to create this visualization showing monthly job growth and unemployment: http://www.tableausoftware.com/blog/60-years-unemployment. The past two years have been some of the most violent (as far as job losses per month) in our post-war history. Relief in sight? I think it may be too soon to tell.
Posted by: Ross Perez | November 13, 2009 4:59 PM
I think Tim's comments are spam.
Thanks dfm they looked like spam to me too.
Posted by: dfm | November 13, 2009 5:36 PM