Weekly U.S. jobless aid applications drop to 343,000
WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply for a fourth straight week, a sign that the job market may be improving.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell 29,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 343,000, the lowest in two months. It is the second-lowest total this year.
Applications are a proxy for layoffs, so the drop indicates that companies are cutting fewer jobs. But employers also need to step up hiring to rapidly push down the unemployment rate.
Applications spiked five weeks ago because of Superstorm Sandy. The storm's impact has now faded. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell 27,000 to 381,500. Before the storm, applications had fluctuated between 360,000 and 390,000 this year.
The storm had little effect on overall hiring in November. Employers added 146,000 jobs last month, the government said last week. That's about the same as the average monthly gain of 150,000 in the past year.
The unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent - a four-year low - from 7.9 percent in October. But the decline occurred mostly because more people without jobs gave up looking for work. The government counts people without jobs as unemployed only if they're actively seeking one.
The department also said Tuesday that employers posted the most open jobs in four months in October. That suggests that hiring could pick up a bit in the coming months.
But some companies may postpone hiring this month because of concerns over the "fiscal cliff," the package of tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take effect next year. If all the changes in the cliff take effect for a full year, economists forecast it would push the economy into recession.
President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are negotiating a potential deficit-reduction deal that would avert the cliff. The goal is to complete an agreement by the end of the year, though talks could continue into January.
Most economists say that if the tax increases and spending cuts are in effect only temporarily while a budget agreement is in sight, the damage to the economy would be minor.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell 29,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 343,000, the lowest in two months. It is the second-lowest total this year.
Applications are a proxy for layoffs, so the drop indicates that companies are cutting fewer jobs. But employers also need to step up hiring to rapidly push down the unemployment rate.
Applications spiked five weeks ago because of Superstorm Sandy. The storm's impact has now faded. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell 27,000 to 381,500. Before the storm, applications had fluctuated between 360,000 and 390,000 this year.
The storm had little effect on overall hiring in November. Employers added 146,000 jobs last month, the government said last week. That's about the same as the average monthly gain of 150,000 in the past year.
The unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent - a four-year low - from 7.9 percent in October. But the decline occurred mostly because more people without jobs gave up looking for work. The government counts people without jobs as unemployed only if they're actively seeking one.
The department also said Tuesday that employers posted the most open jobs in four months in October. That suggests that hiring could pick up a bit in the coming months.
But some companies may postpone hiring this month because of concerns over the "fiscal cliff," the package of tax increases and spending cuts scheduled to take effect next year. If all the changes in the cliff take effect for a full year, economists forecast it would push the economy into recession.
President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are negotiating a potential deficit-reduction deal that would avert the cliff. The goal is to complete an agreement by the end of the year, though talks could continue into January.
Most economists say that if the tax increases and spending cuts are in effect only temporarily while a budget agreement is in sight, the damage to the economy would be minor.
But the workforce participation rate as published by the dept of Labor says there's never been a lower rate of employment for men over 16 yrs old.
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First a definition: The labor force participation rate is that percentage of the adult population that is employed or actively seeking employment.
In August, this group was 63.5% of the population. That was the lowest figure since September 1981, when it also stood at 63.5%, according to the Labor Departmentâs Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For men, the August participation rate figure was 69.8%. Thatâs the lowest on record. The records of the Labor Department began in 1948.
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Who wants to step right up and claim economic recovery out there? (Besides Obama)
 @T_BONE_WALKER you are pathetic almost as much as you are predictable..
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when will you finally stop singing this song and dance
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it's getting old and you are looking dumber and dumber the more you keep on preaching this in the face of evidence clearly indicating you are totally incorrect....
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too much fox news teaches numb skulls that if they keep on saying the same thing over and over someone will eventually believe it so you keep saying the same thing
 @sunnysandiego Pathetic is a loser like you never having one stat to back up your claims. Where are your numbers that dispute the US Dept of Labor's numbers?
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Pathetic is blind loyalty to a corrupt administration and party that is responsible for carrying out every one of G Bush's policies and adding to some of the more draconian policies of that administration.
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Pathetic is calling Bush a war criminal but somehow excusing Obama from his war crimes.
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Pathetic is you who will scurry off never answering to anything because you either cant read or your blind loyalty wont accept the truth. Once again, you haven't even read the article you're commenting on like usual or you would have seen that I simply wrote government stats not my own so your argument with the facts are between you and the government not with me but, you're too stupid to know that.
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I wont ever stop calling you liar when you lie about your war criminal hero and I wont ever give Obama a free pass on the opportunity he and his majority had when he was first inaugurated. He had everything in place to enable him to restore everything that had been stolen from US families and instead chose to side with corporate america and steal a little more from the people. Everything he has touched has benefited business at the expense of families just like a true corporatist does.
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He has the people's SSI and Medicare on the table now and will lose them both for us just like everything else he has tried to bargain, he bargains backwards on every issue.
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People that watch Fox news typically come on here blathering things as if they are facts with nothing to back it up and then run off just exactly like you do EVERY TIME!