Jobless Claims Rise
[Guest post by DRJ]
“Initial jobless claims increase unexpectedly
The number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits rose last week, a sign that jobs remain scarce even as the economy recovers.
The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time claims increased by 18,000 in the week ending April 3, to a seasonally adjusted 460,000. That’s worse than economists’ estimates of a drop to 435,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.”
Is there anyone outside federal government who hasn’t lost a job or know someone who has lost a job?
H/T Gerald A.
— DRJ
I know people who have lost jobs, but I’m in the tech industry, where periodic layoffs have long been considered normal.
The long-term jobless I know are, with one exception, all either: (a) people who have chosen to limit themselves to an unusually small market and are not willing to move; or (b) recent law school graduates with no job experience and a hard time attracting employers.
Neither of these conditions strike me as being a result of general economic conditions.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 4/8/2010 @ 12:58 pmI too am in the tech industry, and occasional “layoffs” by a failed firm are only half the norm; the other half is an immediate demand by other co’s for the same skills.
If the laid-off people are consistently remaining out of work, that part is not normal at all. There is normally very little of that. To the contrary: co’s normally raid even the fully-employed from each other on a regular basis.
ras (88eebb) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:11 pmI blame Bush. Clearly his racist crony-capitalism tax cuts for only the wealthiest amongst us are to blame.
JD (18e145) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:11 pmI think it “unexpected” only if you believe in the O!ne’s litany of hopey changey unicorn fortified magical rainbow miracles.
As far as I can tell, advertising revenue is flat, or still declining, and anecdotally speaking, that seems to be a good indicator of the economy.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:20 pmaphrael doesn’t know any of the 5 million people who have recently lost their jobs. OK. I can see that. I do and I would hesitate to extrapolate from limited personal experience, unless, of course, I wanted to defend an incompetent and clueless president, that is.
The only people for whom this is “unexpected” are in Washington and they are surprised every month; maybe every day.
Mike K (8df289) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:28 pmNeither of these conditions strike me as being a result of general economic conditions.
With all due respect, your assumptions are ridiculous. That is all.
Dmac (21311c) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:38 pmThe word “unexpected,” used so consistently, implies a cluelessness on the part of those using it. Politically, this is a mistake. When things go wrong, it’s better to be seen as a bandit than a fool.
They would have done much better to have said from the outset, “yeah, because we know what we’re doing, we can say it’ll take a long time to even begin to turn this thing around.”
Now it’s too late for them to say that. Those who believed them will see them as fools. Those who don’t will see them as bandits and fools.
Let them play the fool for as long as they like. Let their media friends help them in this.
ras (88eebb) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:50 pm#5 Mike K:
LOL! I live close enough to Washington that I get the impression that they live in a state of continual surprise.
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:51 pmMike K., with great respect, I don’t think alphrael wrote that. However, I did find what he wrote to be a bit more rose-colored glassware than I would have expected from him.
SPQR (9ec863) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:52 pmaphrael,
I understand your initial point, though. All you’re is saying is that, given your own observations, you never expected such dour economic news.
ras (88eebb) — 4/8/2010 @ 1:58 pm“The word “unexpected,” used so consistently, implies a cluelessness on the part of those using it. Politically, this is a mistake. When things go wrong, it’s better to be seen as a bandit than a fool.”
When used in the context of these statistical releases, it is usually comparing the actual number to analysts’ expectations.
imdw (842182) — 4/8/2010 @ 2:40 pmWhich confirms my initial point. Doubly so when the results are wholly predictable excepting to those who cling to a disproven methodology (top-down economic planning in a govt-managed economy).
ras (88eebb) — 4/8/2010 @ 2:50 pmunexpectedly, dim wit trots out the spin-a-tron to try and cover the failure of his god’s talking points. this effort is unprecedented in its failure to fool anyone with an IQ larger than their hat size. 😀
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/8/2010 @ 2:57 pmHang around my city for a few days and you’ll get quite a few “not unexpected” folks who’ve been laid off over a year ago, and despite all attempts at finding decent work anywhere in this country, no dice. Fly – over land must be quite different indeed to the people living on the coasts – but they’re also the ones who ultimately decide elections.
Dmac (21311c) — 4/8/2010 @ 3:01 pmA guest on Charlie Rose recently noted that one out of every three journalists in the U.S. has lost their gig. Visiting family over the Easter holidays, there appeared to be two places doing booming business which we use as anecdotal barometers on the ‘state of the economy.’ 1. A local food store ran an 8 hour sale with significant price cuts to move inventory and was overflowing with shoppers in the middle of a business day. 2. A self-described ‘thrift shop’ located at a busy intersection, which in times past had modest patronage, was packed with so many ‘bargain’ hunters that the parking lot overflows, clogging road traffic and no doubt minimizing mall traffic. Still, banks and Wall Street are rebounding. And Ayn Rand devotee Greenspan admits to having been wrong 30% of the time (in his own estimation) which should be a great comfort to average Americans who’ve never heard of either but but know the boom/bust downside of Reaganomics all too well.
DCSCA (34e382) — 4/8/2010 @ 3:36 pmIMP remains an imbecile regardless of the state of the economy.
JD (18e145) — 4/8/2010 @ 3:43 pmVon Braun begs to differ.
Dmac (21311c) — 4/8/2010 @ 3:46 pmOr his professors at Butler.
And what about the black ops group?
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 4/8/2010 @ 4:29 pmSo, IMP claimed to have been a student @ Butler?! Is there anything he will NOT lie about?
JD (18e145) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:14 pmYou didn’t see that? He said that he was in graduate school at Butler, and waxed lyrical about the hoops everywhere.
Maybe true. Maybe not. He sure hasn’t helped his case with his, um, wide-spread appearances in many places.
Kind of an addled Zelig.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:30 pmWhat thread was that in?
JD (18e145) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:41 pmAnd, as Dmac suggests, is DCSCA actually “Locke”? Enquiring minds want to know.
Link for you, JD:
https://patterico.com/2010/04/03/butler-vs/#comment-646316
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:49 pm[…] ObamaCare: Non-Wealthy Actors Need to Vote Republican in 2010 Patterico’s Pontifications: Jobless Claims Rise and McClatchy Author Makes News, or is That Makes Up News? and Killing the American Economy Frugal […]
Unemployment “Unexpectedly” Increases… Obama’s Approval Rating Plummets Again to Negative 14, Plus Tea Party Info « Frugal Café Blog Zone (a66042) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:50 pmDmac: the fact that students graduating from a second-tier law school have trouble getting jobs was true before the economic crash, as was the fact that there were a limited number of tech jobs in the Santa Cruz job market for people unwilling to drive over highway 17.
At least in the circles I travel in – circles which I admit are very much the exception – very little has changed.
aphrael (4e93b5) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:57 pmRas: fair enough as to the tech industry in general. But the unemployed techies I know all are unwilling to look for jobs which require them to commute to Silicon Valley, and are unwilling to move out of their constrained job market. Finding jobs in that market which didn’t require you to commute was tough during the internet boom; it’s ridiculous to expect it to be different now.
aphrael (4e93b5) — 4/8/2010 @ 5:58 pmSilicon Valley has always been in a bubble, and always will be. But for the vast majority of citizens who don’t congregate in that one targeted area, it’s a completely different world. I’ve worked in both of those worlds, and the differences are so vast it’s not even appropriate to make a coherent analogy.
Dmac (21311c) — 4/8/2010 @ 6:55 pmExpect the unexpected! But we should not expect job creation when every policy and move made by or in the works from this administration… tax increases for productive people… tax liabilities for corporations resulting from ObamaCare… demonizing those who have earned their wealth… chasing the very people whose capital investment is the source of revitalization of industries and job creation away from the country… redistribution of wealth to further the far-left cause of “social justice” is designed to bring our capitalistic, free market system to its knees.
GeneralMalaise (139767) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:13 pm“Which confirms my initial point. Doubly so when the results are wholly predictable excepting to those who cling to a disproven methodology (top-down economic planning in a govt-managed economy).”
There’s money to made if you can beat the analysts. Start publishing your expectations and showing how they are better than the rest.
imdw (cbc3e9) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:13 pmGood Sweet Lord, is this troll for real? He should burst into flame for having the chutzpah to even write that, given his long history of dishonest cheerleading.
Eric Blair (5cf38e) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:35 pmI’ll bring the Hershey bars, if’n you bring the marshmellows.
GeneralMalaise (139767) — 4/8/2010 @ 7:48 pmDCSCA gives us an ejaculation even more stupid than his usual with this:
Greenspan had little association with what DCSCA sneeringly refers to as “Reaganomics”. A fact only confirmed by his repeated renominations through the George H.W. Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Something that by itself ought to be a clue to anyone with more IQ than DCSCA that Greenspan’s positions were bipartisan positions.
The claim that “Reaganomics” gave us “boom/bust” economic cycles is readily refuted by simply looking at the history of economic cycles before and since.
Sheesh, so much ignorance in one spot warps space-time enough to bend light as it passes.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/8/2010 @ 8:20 pmSomewhat tangential to this, as well as very frustrating, is that California is entering into an agreement with China to build high speed rail in California – using Chinese rail parts, engineers, tech desingers and workers. California received 2.5 billion dollars in federal stimulus money, which is being used for this project. Why are they not using American engineers, designers, tech people? Why are we entering into an agreement with a country that already has us at their mercy? They may be experienced at this but it is it beyond American ingenuity? If we need assistance, why not go to France or some other country that doesn’t have us by the throat?
Surely many unemployed engineers, designers, etc. are qualified to work on such an enormous project and would be glad for the work. It’s disgraceful we are outsourcing at such a critical time and using federal stimulus money on it.
I’m doubting the level of concern for the unemployed in our country…
Dana (1e5ad4) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:11 pmA guest on Charlie Rose recently noted that one out of every three journalists in the U.S. has lost their gig.
And guessing the politics of around 90% of them is of the left — which is true of journalists in general — and that so many of them are too disengenous to even admit how biased they and the MSM are, there is at least one silver lining to unemployment statistics. A silver lining created by both the age of the Internet (which has changed the nature of the print industry in particular, the media in general, and the previous rules of how to make money) and the current recession.
Mark (411533) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:17 pm“California received 2.5 billion dollars in federal stimulus money, which is being used for this project.”
Dana – It would take too much common sense to spend the money with U.S. suppliers and on U.S. workers. That is why.
daleyrocks (718861) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:28 pmbut but know the boom/bust downside of Reaganomics all too well
I’ll take Reaganomics anyday over what Roosevelt (and, admittedly, his predecessor, Republican Herbert Hoover) did in the 1930s. That was the foolish tactic of adding insult to injury (following the great stock market crash of 1929) by greatly increasing income taxes on the American public, the more affluent and investment-generating people in particular.
And to illustrate what a dunce one of the great heroes of the Democrat Party, Franklin Roosevelt, was, he requested of the IRS that his own upper-level income be exempt from the higher taxes imposed by him and Congress. IOW, he was willing to concede the stupidity of the way his tactics would affect his human nature, but not the human nature of others.
Mark (411533) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:29 pm“There’s money to made if you can beat the analysts.”
There’s money to be made in Las Vegas too. Why do you think those casinos are so big?
daleyrocks (718861) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:31 pmlets hope that their surprise on night/morning of November 4-5 2110 sets unexpected records for their personal unemployment.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:35 pmyou’ll have to wait until the napalm and white phosphorus burn off first…. 😀
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:36 pmSounds like the 1860s again.
Some chump (c2555f) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:41 pmhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjPxDOEdsX8
This would make a good campfire.
JD (18e145) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:43 pm@ daley,
It would take too much common sense to spend the money with U.S. suppliers and on U.S. workers. That is why.
I just got finished reading two articles about high speed rails and while apparently the Shanghai Maglev is considered the best, there is a company in Georgia that is working on it’s own technology. Surely there are others. If Spain, Argentina, and even Morroco can develop successful high speed rail, surely innovative Americans are able to as well. Is this more underestimation and regard for American ingenuity and fortitude?
Here is an article explaining that several American companies want in on the action and are ready to roll. Why not keep U.S. dollars in the U.S.?
Dana (1e5ad4) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:58 pmCA Hi-Speed Rail….
didn’t we pass a bond measure to build this too?
We’ll sell the bonds to the Chinese, and then hire them to build the damn trolley, if the NIMBY’s and BANANA’s eventually get out of the way, and then we’ll tax ourselves for 40-years to pay back the Chinese.
And people scratch their heads trying to figure out what is wrong in CA.
AD - RtR/OS! (67c4f6) — 4/8/2010 @ 9:59 pm“Why not keep U.S. dollars in the U.S.?”
Dana – I thought my answer was clear.
daleyrocks (718861) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:02 pm@ daley,
I thought my answer was clear.
Ha! Actually, I just emailed Arnold about this. I expect to hear back from him any minute now with a thorough explanation that will no doubt shed light about why this is a brilliant plan that actually does have American interest its top priority….
*tap, tap, tap…still waiting…*
Dana (1e5ad4) — 4/8/2010 @ 10:09 pmDear Dana:
Nein sprechen sie englisch.
keine liebe,
Ahnuld (fb8750) — 4/8/2010 @ 11:26 pmDas Governator
“California received 2.5 billion dollars in federal stimulus money, which is being used for this project. Why are they not using American engineers, designers, tech people? Why are we entering into an agreement with a country that already has us at their mercy? They may be experienced at this but it is it beyond American ingenuity? If we need assistance, why not go to France or some other country that doesn’t have us by the throat?”
Why don’t we have the experience and capability to build major infrastructure projects? Good question.
[note: fished from spam filter. –Stashiu]
imdw (d8fa96) — 4/9/2010 @ 5:00 amSilicon Valley has always been in a bubble, and always will be. But for the vast majority of citizens who don’t congregate in that one targeted area, it’s a completely different world. I’ve worked in both of those worlds, and the differences are so vast it’s not even appropriate to make a coherent analogy.
Right. And I’m not making that analogy; I don’t think my experience in this recession generalizes to the American economy as a whole. I’m merely answering the original question: “is there anyone outside federal government who hasn’t lost a job or know someone who has lost a job?” with, “well, I know people who have lost jobs, but not in a way which seems at all out of the ordinary.”
The big difference I’ve seen in the valley in the last 2-3 years is that people aren’t leaving jobs because they’re worried that new employers will shuck off their newest employees if there are problems. Job mobility has slowed down significantly, which is ironically making it hard for those who are hiring to find people. Similarly, companies have become risk-averse in their hiring practices and are way more selective than they were three years ago.
aphrael (73ebe9) — 4/9/2010 @ 6:15 amDana, given that we’re going to build the thing, as a taxpayer in the state, I’d prefer that we built it the cheapest (safe) way possible. California’s budget continues to be a disaster – and spending more to get people with less domain expertise doesn’t strike me as being a good use of limited money.
aphrael (73ebe9) — 4/9/2010 @ 6:17 am[…] Than President Obama Patterico’s Pontifications: A Poll: Obama vs Limbaugh & Palin and Jobless Claims Rise VotingFemale: Marxist Operated CNN pulls a desperation ‘Sybil’ stunt; bottoming revenues is the […]
Congress to Miss Deadline, Will Blow Off Next Year’s Budget, California & 32 Other States Borrowing to Pay Unemployment « Frugal Café Blog Zone (a66042) — 4/12/2010 @ 8:22 am