Tagged: Economic Numbers

There were 370,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance filed last week, the same number as during the week before, according to the Employment and Training Administration.

So, after a spike to a range around 390,000 per week in April, claims have slowed again to a pace that's roughly the lowest since the spring of 2008.

According to The Wall Street Journal, that suggests "the recently volatile labor market is stabilizing."

Two bits of economic news this morning:

-- Consumer prices overall were unchanged in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, thanks in large part to a 2.6 percent drop in the price of gasoline.

-- Consumer spending rose just 0.1 percent in April from March, the Census Bureau says. According to Bloomberg News, some of the slowdown in spending growth may have been because unusually warm weather and pre-Easter shopping pushed March sales up more than expected.

Every day there's a new economic indicator. Some are up. Some are down. And all are spun by the political parties.

Another piece of data to fit into a confusing employment jigsaw puzzle: this time, it's advertising for new jobs – U.S. companies in March posted the highest number of those in four years.

The Labor Department says some 3.74 million job openings were advertised for the month, the most since July 2008, about six months after the recession officially began but still just ahead of the financial meltdown.

What does it mean?

If you're an optimist, it means employers are feeling a bit more "robust" about the economy and want to add workers.

If you're a pessimist, you'd point out that roughly 12.7 million people are still out of work and that the unemployment rate remains stubbornly above 8 percent. Some 3.4 people are in competition for each job.

For the second month in a row, weak job growth numbers unsettled nerves in the White House and on Wall Street.

It's obvious why the number of jobs added to the economy in April was disappointing. Employment grew by just 115,000. That followed a disappointing job gain in March. Together, the March and April average was only about half the 250,000 jobs added monthly in December, January and February.

Again, economists suggested the warm winter weather might have boosted job growth during the winter months, which left fewer jobs to be added in the spring.

However, at first glance there appeared to be a silver lining in April's numbers: The unemployment rate inched down again to 8.1 percent.