The US economy added 151,000 jobs in October according to the latest US Labor Department employment report. Overall, the unemployment rate remains at 9.6 percent but the increase is fueling some optimism.
“We’re seeing some incremental improvement in the labor market,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. “Things aren’t good enough now, but we do have growth that’s likely to accelerate going forward. As the economy picks up, firms have got to add workers because they cut down so much.”
Source: Bloomberg
The number of new claims for jobless benefits for the week ended July 24th, fell by 11,000 from the week before to 457,000 new claims. Overall however, the number of people receiving unemployment benefits increased raising concerns that job growth in the US is slowing.
“It does feel like there’s been a little bit of a deceleration in the pace of hiring,” Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, said before the report. “It relates to a lot of fear and uncertainty around the sustainability of the recovery.”
Source: Bloomberg
In a bid to pressure lawmakers to pass legislation for a new budget that has been delayed for more than a month, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal state of emergency. California’s economy, which is the eighth largest in the world, faces a budget deficit of $19bn (£12bn).
Source: BBC News
