At first glance, it’s good news for the U.S. economy. More and more people have been finding work and transitioning faster from one job to the next. Last year America had the most job growth since 1999.
Economist Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial thinks it could also be a positive sign for veterans. “Some of the surge earlier in the year was due to a jump in veterans returning home, but that is starting to abate,” she said. Another factor is that layoffs in the retail sector could also be mostly over after the end of the holiday shopping season.
This comes on the heels of an upbeat assessment of the economy from the Federal Reserve, which cited strong job growth as a reason to expect continued improvement in 2015.
However, economists advise against celebrating – just yet. Jobless claims often jump around a lot from week to week, and last week included the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, which may have made people less inclined to file unemployment claims.
“My knee jerk response is to say ‘holiday week.’ This is an anomaly, and we’re most likely to get a big gain next week to compensate for it,” says Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics.
Going forward, the key number to keep an eye on will be job losses in the energy industry.
On Thursday, Royal Dutch Shell announced $15 billion in worldwide cutbacks, the latest big oil company to scale back. That’s having a ripple effect across the energy and industrial sector.
Layoffs have begun in North Dakota and Texas, among other big energy producing states.
“Texas has been a real strong job creator for this economy. It created a large proportion of jobs for the national economy. Now Texas is going to go limp,” Brusca says.
The stock market initially bounced on the news of the big decline in jobless claims, but it then pulled back as more companies report lackluster earnings results.
Economists often look at the 4-week average of initial jobless claims, which fell to 298,500 last week. That’s about where it was in early December. ##
(Photo Credit: CNN Money)
Article Submitted by Sandra Lane to – Daily Business News- MHProNews.
