G.O.O.D

Source: Reuters

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped by 30,000 to a 26-year peak last week, government data on Wednesday showed, as the country’s year-long recession continued to chill the labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 586,000 in the week ended Dec 20 from a revised 556,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said. It was the highest since the week ending November 27, 1982.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast 560,000 new claims versus a previously reported count of 554,000 the week before.

A Labor Department official said there were no special factors influencing the data and no noticeable impact from severe winter weather in northern parts of the country.

Technorati Tags: unemployment, jobless claims

Source:NYTimes.com

With unemployment claims reaching their highest levels in decades, states are running out of money to pay benefits, and some are turning to the federal government for loans or increasing taxes on businesses to make the payments.

Thirty states are at risk of having the funds that pay out unemployment benefits become insolvent over the next few months, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Funds in two states, Indiana and Michigan, have already dried up, and both states are borrowing from the federal government to make payments to the unemployed.

Unemployment taxes are collected by states from employers, but the rate varies from state to state per employee. In good times states build up trust funds so that when unemployment is high there is enough money to cover the requests for benefits, which are guaranteed by the federal government.

“You don’t expect the loans to happen this early in a jobs slump,” said Andrew Stettner, the deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy organization for low-wage workers. “You would expect that the states should, even when they are not well prepared, to have savings.”

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Technorati Tags: unemployment

Source: MarketWatch

The number of workers filing for state unemployment benefits fell by 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 509,000 for the week ending Nov. 29, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

It’s the lowest number of initial jobless claims since the week ended Nov. 1. Claims have dropped for two straight weeks after hitting a sixteen year high of 543,000.

The four-week moving average of new claims - which smoothes out distortions caused by one-time events such as holidays and weather - rose by 6,250 to 524,500, the highest in sixteen years.

This is an indication that jobs are becoming harder to find.

Also on the darker side of the data, the number of people continuing to collect unemployment benefits rose by 89,000 in the week ending Nov. 22 to a seasonally adjusted 4.09 million, also the most in sixteen years. The four-week average of continuing claims rose to 4.0 million, the most since 1983.

The message here is that Americans who have been laid off from their jobs are finding it harder to get work again.

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Technorati Tags: unemployment, jobless claims