Jan 8: Initial Claims Fall for 2nd Consecutive Week
Zacks Market Commentaries (January 8th, 2009) Writes:
Initial Claims for the week ending Jan. 3rd fell 24,000 to 467,000, from 491,000 last week, and from a 26-year high of 586,000 the week before. This decrease came at a -13.5% surprise from the 540,000 estimate. Initial claims have fallen the last two weeks, which may have been a result of offices closed for holidays allowing less opportunity for initial unemployment claims filings were made. Also, the figures indicate that those filing haven't regained employment as the number of persons continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose to 4,611,000, the highest since November of 1982 (when size of labor force was smaller), and was only 2,690,000 in the prior year. In the past week, ending December 27th, initial claims decreased as a result of significantly reduced filings in Texas, California, Florida, and Virginia cited from fewer layoffs in construction, trade, services, automobile, and manufacturing industries. In Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas,
...California, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Stocks to Watch, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, Zacks Market Commentaries


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