Jobless claims reduce somewhat and stock market gets slight increase

For the very first time in weeks, the number of new jobless claims has sharply dropped. Unemployment was slightly helped by winter retail hires and the United States of America census during a terrible lull in employment. The housing market is still within the basement; however some good news about employment is a welcome change. That said, it’s not cause to celebrate as unemployment is as bad as it has ever been, having held since November of 2009. On the plus side, it did cheer up stock markets. There was a slight boost on Wall Street as a result.

Fall with fresh unemployed claims

A drop was recorded in the quantity of brand new claims for unemployment benefits by the Department of Labor. The number of jobless claims still sits, adjusted seasonally, at 473,000, but that number dropped by 31,000 over the last week. That’s encouraging, however the past four weeks average to 486,750. As outlined by Forbes, that’s the highest since November 2009. That said, winter jobless claims have to be taken with a grain of salt, as holiday seasonal employment provides a slight spike for the busiest part of the retail year. There was also some temporary other employment. The Census was taken this year.

Stock exchange get a boost

The news of lower jobless claims led to an uptick in the stock exchange, according to the Wall Street Journal. The largest increase was .3 percent for Standard and Poor’s, a barely mentionable gain. The Nasdaq climbed only .2 percent, and also the Dow Jones managed a paltry .1 percent gain. The big news on Wall Street is really the Dell acquisition, though others try to stop it, of data storage company 3Par. A bidding war between Dell and Hewlett-Packard for 3 Par has been the huge story on Wall Street over the last week, after last week’s rampant coverage of Potash Corp.

Miles to go before we sleep

This was not a radical decrease in unemployment. You will find few indicators it is decreasing by much. Fewer employers are currently hiring. The real estate market has been nothing short of dismal, and it is estimated that 10 percent of all homeowners are at risk of foreclosure.

More on this topic

Forbes

forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/08/26/real-estate-industrials-us-economy_7879865.html

Wall Street Journal

online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100826-709681.html