patrick.net

I understand how U6 is much more accurate than U3 in stating the unemployment rate, but what I am asking about is how the INITIAL UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS number shows about 500,000 new claims every single week but the MONTHLY JOB LOSSES are reported as only about the same number.
How can their be four new unemployment claims filed for each one job lost?
This gets reported all the time in the news media but nobody ever explains it.

Usually the 250,000 number comes from either continuing claims, which can be affected by people getting jobs or losing benefits from being out of work so long (at which point they no longer count as unemployed, strangely enough). The number can also come from the assumption that, of the 2,000,000 losing their jobs, 3/4s find another job and thus do not remain unemployed. At least those are my best guesses :)

All I know is, stock market, which surged ahead based on some inflated earnings, now coming to face with,
- unemployment numbers
- low consumer confidence

(aka the 'real' economy indicators)

A bunch of people have been unemployed for a year, so they are dropping off of the rolls of the unemployed, even though they are not working. It was last August when the s#it hit the fan, and huge numbers lost their jobs. I think the same will continue until Christmas -- rosey numbers from the government, and more people without even unemployment to rely upon. I would only look at crime statisitics.

If the government extends unemployment benefits again that will allow millions more to be uncounted since
the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not count anyone on Emergency Unemployment Compensation
as getting an unemployment check even though they do.
But the BLS has so far refused to answer my question about how we can have 500,000 new claims per week, which requires that someone has already been out of work for at least a week because of the waiting period, and then at the end of the month have a total of only 250,000 jobs lost. This week the number was 558,000 "new claims" but in the entire month of July we supposedly only lost 247,000 jobs.
2 million jobs were actually lost in July.
Since each person who files a new claim must have lost a job at a covered employer that means at least 500,000 people are losing their jobs every single week, or 100,000 every work day and that does not count people who worked for employers not covered by unemployment insurance.
This is not even counting the 15 million people who are not getting unemployment benefits and were never
included in any off the numbers.

Today the numbers show 576,000 new claims and a four week average of 570,000 per week.
Once again that adds up to 2,280,000 people who lost jobs over a four week period but it will
probably be reported as less than 300,000.
Since the whole unemployment insurance process has been moved online we no longer have the
visual of hundreds of people standing around the unemployment office trying to get their checks
or look for jobs so the news media never bothers to do any stories on unemployment beyond just reading the government press releases without questioning what they are being told.

Well I guess they are having a hard time spinning the California unemployment number
of 11.9 percent that came out today.
That certainly ought to have an impact on real estate prices since it means one eight of
all potential buyers will be unable to qualify for any kind of loans at all for the next few years.
This should cause a lot more foreclosures in the next few months so the pronouncements
of the recession being over and recovery beginning will not mean a thing in California.

pinnacle says

But the BLS has so far refused to answer my question about how we can have 500,000 new claims per week, which requires that someone has already been out of work for at least a week because of the waiting period, and then at the end of the month have a total of only 250,000 jobs lost. This week the number was 558,000 “new claims” but in the entire month of July we supposedly only lost 247,000 jobs.
2 million jobs were actually lost in July.

Well, presumably some of those 2 million found new jobs. But the answer to your question is in the "birth/death model". http://www.bls.gov/web/cesbd.htm It's talking about the birth/death of businesses, not people. It's a modifer that says whether hew positions are being created or lost due to the creation or closing of businesses. Basically it's a subjective number that can be used to make the unemployment numbers say whatever the govt wants them to say.

So we are supposed to believe that 1.85 million new jobs are being created every month thereby leaving only 250,000 of those 2.2 million new claimants each month without work?
Where are these new jobs?
Why isn't the White House taking credit for creating so many new jobs?
Not one person I know who has gone on unemployment in the past six months has gotten a new job
so I don't think all those new claimants are getting rehired in significant numbers.
It's possible that large numbers of "new claims" are being denied.
They also don't count pay reductions of people are still working the same hours for less money which obviously is a big factor in consumer spending.

Today's new claims for "standard" unemployment show a "drop" of 10,000 but the number of new people moving onto "extended" unemployment benefits is 102,500 so the supposed drop in claims does not indicate anybody is actually getting hired.
We are also hearing that 435 banks are expected to go under in the next few months because of
commercial real estate defaults.
I wish somebody would explain how unemployment is going to go down if all these banks collapse and all the commercial properties get foreclosed throwing millions of people out of work.
What businesses are going to be in a position to hire in this collapsing commercial environment?
With all these continuing job losses who is going to buy houses and keep bidding up the prices?
We keep hearing a lot of optimistic generalities but no specifics on where these jobs are supposed to come from.

When they admit to 11.9 percent they are really talking about 20 percent unemployment or more since so many people are simply excluded from the calculation for mysterious reasons.
Any way you look at it a big segment of the potential buyers are not going to be able to qualify for loans
at all because they will have a big gap in their employment history.
By the way doesn't Europe have a lot more "green jobs" than the US?
If so than how come Europe has so much unemployment?
Aren't the "green jobs" supposed to replace all the that have been lost in the past year and save the economy?

As of September 4, 2009 U3 is up to 9.7 percent and U6 is up to 16.8 percent. Even the "underemployed" will not be able to get mortgages again for several years because they need a history of earning a qualifying amount
on a continuous basis to even apply. That history now has abig hole in it and many will never
again earn tha kind of money they once did.

Remember that many people apply for unemployment but are denied - they may have been fired (with or without cause) but can't find another job, or independent contractors such as medical transcriptionists, sales people, construction workers...

None of these people are considered when reporting official numbers.

I wish I could keep my personal accounts that way. It'd be so cool to invent more resources for money (therefore potential assets). I'd also make the national color pink and decree that pigs can fly.

Excellent article on this issue:

http://www.truthout.org/090609V

There are two different components of Unemployment based upon different surveys: 1. Household survey of people looking for a job in the last month to determine the unemployment rate (9.7%). 2. Survey of employers/employees to determine jobs created and jobs lost, along with the birth/death model for businesses created or closed to determine the net jobs created or lost (215,000 last month). There is another BLS survey of jobs created or lost that is also reported and they often do not match (the 215,000#) but they try to reconcile them periodically. The birth/death model generally understates net jobs lost during a decline and the oposite during strong growth.

Unemployment claims are the most current data and is based more upon hard data (not surveys). They do some seasonal adjustments to the data so it is not hard computer data alone. The markets pay a lot of attention to this # because we are looking for any sign of real improvement in the labor market.

The Automatic Data Processing # (ADP) is released once a month based upon their records of actual employment changes on payroll for private employers that they process but they also do some adjustments to that data in an attempt to estimate the monthly jobs lost or gained for the month in the private sector.

There are several things that are different this time that are also of great importance to the health of the job market. Hours worked (33.1) are the lowest since they have accumulated the stat. Income growth is weak. The part time component is very weak. The U6#--- those working part time that want to work full time and those that are not looking for work because they are discouraged has risen to 16.8%. That is a record #.

This may not be 100% correct but it is the basic outline.

Since a 40 hour week has been the standrd for "full time employment" a 33.1 hour work week
equal a loss of about 17.5 percent of all jobs in the country and that's not counting the 16.8 percent of
people who are officially "unemployed or underderemployed".
So we really have a situation where about 33 percent of the US workforce is not working or has such a large reduction of income that they will not be able to obtain credit for large purchases for the foreseeable future which makes a "consumer driven" recovery impossible for an indefinite time.

Not one person I know who has gone on unemployment in the past six months has gotten a new job.

Last person we laid off, which was in September 2008, started a new job 3 weeks ago. Never ran out of unemployment, since it got extended.

Here's the deal. My friend is running out of unemployment support from the government. He got a $365k house mortgage to pay, health insurance, food, fuel, electricity, water etc..

His nearby REO is selling for $280k and no one is interested. Here's my point: We haven't seen the worst of housing bubble yet. More REQ and foreclosures in the pipeline in 2009, 2010 & 2011.

Trust me. Unemployment will force some people to short sale, foreclosure even more. They are simply running out of options.

Now California officially has 12.2 percent unemployment and none of the state and local city workers
have even been laid off yet even though the drastic cutbacks have been predicted for months.
This has got to reduce all consumer spending for a long time to come and eventually will drag down all
housing prices just because very few will be able to qualify for a mortgage.
Even investors will have problems because they have been buying rental properties in areas with
rapidly increasing unemployment and no prospect of new jobs in the foreseeable future.
Who will want to rent there?

I just want to say:
If you don't need people to work, don't give them sh## for being unemployed.
I don't see any new wave of hiring... No green jobs, no nothing...
so just send us a weekly check to buy our basic necessities.
Unless you want to pay me big bucks for my skills, shouldn't I just chill out and wait?
Like ferr sherr, right?
And unemployment is going to go like 120% from what I've heard... just some in the know sources I keep confidential.

And don't anybody get the wise idea of working for less than enough to make a living. In CA, don't do sh## for less than 120K a year.

Yes I agree jobless rate is higher.

You can better follow total over all unemployment using the U-6 numbers, currently marked at 16%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#United_States_Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics

United States Bureau of Labor Statistics

The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 15 years of age) using two different labor force surveys[32] conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and/or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor) that gather employment statistics monthly. The Current Population Survey (CPS), or "Household Survey", conducts a survey based on a sample of 60,000 households. This Survey measures the unemployment rate based on the ILO definition.[33] The data are also used to calculate 5 alternate measures of unemployment as a percentage of the labor force based on different definitions noted as U1 through U6:[34]

U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.
U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons.

The September unemployment number is now up to 9.8 percent and U6 up to 17 percent.
No sign of any new jobs created by the "stimulus" package. In fact governement layoffs have increased.
The fact that 500,000 more workers have stopped looking for work shows that there is no real prospect of
even part-time employment on the horizon and no real world "recovery" at all.
GM recently hired back 1400 workers but is now going to close down Saturn that will put 13,000 people out of work so the
"improvement" in the auto industry didn't last long.