HI-TRANSFER

Today’s jobless claims report showed that both initial and continued unemployment claims declined while seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” declined to 351,000 claims from last week’s revised 365,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 81,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.6%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.33 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.98 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.32 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today’s Employment Situation Report indicated that in February, net nonfarm payrolls increased with private nonfarm payrolls adding 233,000 jobs and the unemployment rate going flat at 8.3% over the same period.

Net private sector jobs increased 0.21% since last month climbing 2.07% above the level seen a year ago but but remained a whopping 4.23% below the peak level of employment seen in December 2007.

Be sure to bookmark the "Scary Unemployment Dashboard"... it's live.

Today's employment situation report showed that conditions for the long term unemployed improved slightly in February but remained epically distressed by historic standards.

Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 5.426 million or 42.6% of all unemployed workers while the median number of weeks unemployed increased to 20.3 weeks and the average stay on unemployment declined to 40.0 weeks, the highest level ever recorded.

Looking at the charts below (click for super interactive versions) you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.

Today’s jobless claims report showed that both initial and continued unemployment claims increased slightly while seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” increased to 362,000 claims from last week’s revised 354,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 10,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.7%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.40 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.88 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.28 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn it appears that participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise.

In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed the last peak (which looks like a minor blip by comparison) set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina.

The latest data released by the Department of Agriculture shows that in December, 227,922 recipients were added to the food stamps program with the current total increasing 5.52% on a year-over-year basis while household participation increased 7.23%.

Individual participation as a ratio of the overall civilian non-institutional population has increased 4.84% over the same period.

Participation continues to increase with nominal benefit costs climbing a lofty 5.57% on a year-over-year basis to $6.22 billion for the month.

Today’s jobless claims report showed that both initial and continued unemployment claims declined slightly while seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” declined to 351,000 claims from last week’s revised 353,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 2,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.7%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.37 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 4.01 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.38 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today’s jobless claims report showed that initial unemployment claims went flat while continued unemployment claims declined as seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” went unchanged at 351,000 claims from last week’s revised 351,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 52,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.7%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.40 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.98 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.39 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today’s jobless claims report showed a decline to both initial and continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend well below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined 13,000 to 348,000 claims from last week’s revised 361,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 100,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.7%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.47 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 4.09 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.57 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today’s jobless claims report showed a decline to initial unemployment claims and an increase to continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial claims continued to trend below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined 15,000 to 358,000 claims from last week’s revised 373,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 64,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.8%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.50 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 4.05 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.55 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today’s Employment Situation Report indicated that in January, net nonfarm payrolls increased with private nonfarm payrolls adding 257,000 jobs and the unemployment rate declining to 8.3% over the same period.

Net private sector jobs increased 0.23% since last month climbing 2.06% above the level seen a year ago but but remained a whopping 4.47% below the peak level of employment seen in December 2007.

Be sure to bookmark the "Scary Unemployment Dashboard"... it's live.

Today's employment situation report showed that conditions for the long term unemployed were mixed in January and remained epically distressed by historic standards.

Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 5.518 million or 42.9% of all unemployed workers while the median number of weeks unemployed increased to 21.1 weeks and the average stay on unemployment declined to 40.1 weeks, the highest level ever recorded.

Looking at the charts below (click for super interactive versions) you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.

Today’s Employment Situation report showed that in January “total unemployment” including all marginally attached workers declined to 15.1% from the prior month's level of 15.2% while the traditionally reported unemployment rate also declined to 8.3%.

The traditional unemployment rate is calculated from the monthly household survey results using a fairly explicit definition of “unemployed” (essentially unemployed and currently looking for full time employment) leaving many workers to be considered effectively “on the margin” either employed in part time work when full time is preferred or simply unemployed and no longer looking for work.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers “marginally attached” workers (including discouraged workers) and persons who have settled for part time employment to be “underutilized” labor.

The broadest view of unemployment would include both traditionally unemployed workers and all other underutilized workers.

To calculate the “total” rate of unemployment we would simply use this larger group rather than the smaller and more restrictive “unemployed” group used in the traditional unemployment rate calculation.

Today’s jobless claims report showed notable increases to both initial and continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted remained below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment increased 21,000 to 377,000 claims from last week’s revised 356,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 88,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.8%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.41 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 4.11 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.53 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today’s jobless claims report showed notable declines to both initial and continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial fell back below the closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined 50,000 to 352,000 claims from last week’s revised 402,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 215,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.7%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.56 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 4.16 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.77 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today’s jobless claims report showed an increase to both initial and continued unemployment claims as seasonally adjusted initial claims jumped back near the so closely watched 400K level.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment increased 24,000 to 399,000 claims from last week’s revised 375,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 19,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.9%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.45 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.77 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 7.23 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their latest monthly read of job availability and labor turnover (JOLT) showing that private non-farm job “openings” declined 1.57% since October climbing 6.82% above the level seen in November 2010 while private non-farm job “hires” increased 2.11% from October and rose 5.37% above the level seen in November 2010

Job “layoffs and discharges” increased 5.68% from October falling 1.19% below the level seen last year while quitting activity increased 1.83% from October remaining 11.37% above the level seen in November 2010.

It’s important to understand that job “quits” are included as a component of the “separations” data series as “quitting” is a valid means of workers “separating” from employers but their inclusion tends to create an overall procyclical trend in what would otherwise be logically thought of as a countercyclical process (i.e. downturn leads to increase in separations not decrease).