The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits jumped to 4.99 million two weeks ago, breaking a record for a fourth straight time, signaling the job market is still deteriorating.
Total benefit rolls surged by 170,000 in the week ended Feb. 7, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. First-time applications for unemployment benefits were unchanged at 627,000 last week, higher than economists projected.
Source: Bloomberg
According to CNNMoney: “Payrolls shrink by 533,000, bringing 11-month decline to 1.9 million. Unemployment soars to 6.7%”.
“The economy shed 533,000 jobs in November, according to a government report Friday – bringing the year’s total job losses to 1.9 million.
November had the largest monthly job loss total since December 1974.”
According to Washington Business Journal: “The ADP National Employment Report said that the U.S. job market shows weakness, with losses in the manufacturing, services and construction sectors.
The ADP report found that construction lost 44,000 jobs, manufacturing 118,000 jobs and services 92,000 positions during October.
Manufacturing has lost jobs in the U.S. for 27 straight months and the construction sector has sacked 521,000 workers since August 2006, according to the payroll company’s employment study.”
According to Reuters and Guardian: “U.S. private employers slashed an unexpectedly high 250,000 jobs in November, the biggest cut in seven years, while the service sector, which powers most of the economy, posted its worst slump on record.
Wednesday’s reports were the latest signs that the job market is nowhere near bottom and suggested Friday’s government payrolls report could exceed current expectations for 320,000 job losses in November.”
According to CNNMoney: “Employment opportunities for legal professionals have traditionally been plentiful – and lucrative. But as the economy has dried up, so too have those jobs.
The employment market for new law graduates has remained relatively strong and stable since 1997. And last year was the sector’s strongest showing in 20 years, with 92% of graduates finding jobs in their field, according to the National Association for Law Placement. But that’s beginning to change.”
According to San Francisco Business Times: “With the pace of Bay Area layoffs increasing, particularly in the East Bay, workforce retraining efforts are also gathering steam.
Large-scale job cuts have accelerated with the closure of department store chain Mervyns’ Hayward corporate office and eight East Bay locations, and the acquisition of Longs Drug Stores Corp. by CVS Caremark Corp., with the loss of 800 Longs corporate jobs. This week, electronics retailer Circuit City Inc. said it would close 155 stores nationally, including six in the East Bay.
These are among the region’s biggest layoffs since last year, when job losses were focused on the home lending industry. Roy Bertuccelli, a program financial specialist at the Alameda County Workforce Investment Board in Hayward, said the last three weeks have been “extremely unusual. … All sectors of the economy are slowing down.”
Meanwhile, green industries, health care and biotech continue to hire. Bertuccelli is seeking to retrain workers to match up with continued demand from “sunrise” industries.”
According to NBC12: “Workers with Henrico’s Qimonda company headed into work yesterday, not knowing if they’d have a job come December. On Monday, the memory-chip company announced cuts to nearly half its Sandston-based workforce.
The plant that employs 3,000 people will soon be trimming its workforce nearly in half. Beginning in December, 1,200 employees at Qimonda will be laid off.”
According to NYTimes: “Sezmi, the company with a bold plan to reinvent television for the Internet age, laid off 20 percent of its staff today, or around 20 employees, in what its president and chairman Phil Wiser described as an acknowledgment of tough economic times.
Once a secretive start-up called Building B, Sezmi is aiming to build a comprehensive television service it can provide to mid-tier telephone companies that need to offer their customers a television option. The company has built a set-top box with an integrated DVR and a unique interface that combines Internet channels with regular programming. It has also designed a hybrid distribution network that involves sending high-definition television over spectrum it licenses from local television broadcasters.”
According to CNNMoney: “As the faltering economy forces companies to cut back, employee perks are among the first things to go. And along with free coffee in the break room, the next thing your employer might axe is its contribution to your retirement savings plan.
About 84% of companies in the U.S. offered employees a 401(k) match as of last year according to Watson Wyatt, a benefits consulting firm.”
According to San Jose Mercury News: “The number of people looking for work in Silicon Valley was up sharply in October, sending the unemployment rate to 6.9 percent — still far below California’s jobless rate of 8.2 percent.“
According to The Daily News: “The University of Texas Medical Branch campus, where a chorus of ambulance sirens once was constant and thousands of workers conducted the daily business of keeping a 550-bed hospital running, was somber and quiet Tuesday as the first of 3,000 people learned they no longer had jobs.
Most had worked at John Sealy Hospital, where workers will take the brunt of the massive cut.
Many had never worked any place except the medical branch.
Some who had held out hope their jobs would be spared sat in disbelief at the news. Others, minutes after being dismissed, attended classes to brush up their job-seeking skills.
Then, there were those who didn’t yet know. They waited in dread to enter rooms where their supervisors would deliver the news.
The University of Texas System regents last week authorized cutting up to 3,800 full-time equivalent positions after Hurricane Ike devastated the island campus that had employed 8,000 people.”
According to ITExaminer: “AMD’s Indian employees can rest easy, as the company has no plans to follow up layoffs in the US with similar cuts in India.
AMD India managing director, Dasaradha Gude. said, “This is a global impact of economic slowdown, and AMD hopes to come back hard. It will affect India as well, but we are also at the hiring spree.” He added, “There are no such plans to have similar lay-offs in India.”
According to Reuters: “The governor of a Chinese province sat down with protesters after they fought pitched battles with police, a rare concession by a leader and a sign of government concerns about stability as the economy slows.
Xu Shousheng held a meeting with 10 representatives in Wudu in the poverty-stricken northwestern province of Gansu two days after the riot in which dozens were injured, state media said.”
Riots in China
Photo: Reuters
According to AP: “Citing the weak global economy and reduced demand, International Paper Co. has closed its pulp mill in northeastern Louisiana, terminating 550 employees.”
Fortune: “I was thinking about the financial mess the other day and I came up with this theory. I’m wary of it because it’s comforting, even uplifting, and by definition any economic supposition that has a happy ending is suspect. So with that caveat here goes:
I remember talking to a wise man at the end of the last decade who was pointing out to me how much the market had gone up during the 1990s and how stocks couldn’t possibly continue to go up at that rate. The market’s historical annual mean gain is about 8%, and yet between 1990 and 2000 the market had climbed some 15% per annum.” (full story)
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