A television station in Hong Kong claims to have received leaked documents from Chinese officials indicating that China’s inflation for the year ending in December slowed from 5.1 percent in November to 4.6 percent. The station also reported that China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 10.3 percent for the year.
Source: BBC News
China’s red-hot economy cooled slightly during the third quarter with growth falling to 9.6 percent compared to 10 percent earlier in the year. It seems that government has had limited success at least to cool the economy through tightening credit and withdrawing stimulus spending.
New claims for jobless benefits for the week ending August 28th fell by 6,000 to 472,000 compared to the previous week. Employment remains a concern as companies hold off on hiring on fears that the economy could slow further in the second half of the year.
“The rate of layoffs is still uncomfortably high,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. “This continues to feed the unemployment rolls. We see no reason to expect an acceleration in consumer spending.”
Source: Bloomberg
According to Statistics Canada, Canada’s national inflation rate was 1.0 per cent in June. All provinces recorded positive growth, but in several cases, the rate of growth declined from the previous month, reinforcing Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s statements earlier in the week where he predicted Canada’s rate of growth would slow in the second half of the year.
Source: The Canadian Press
Despite predictions of a 0.5 percent increase in retail sales for December, actual results indicate a 0.3 percent decline from November and is especially disappointing as the holiday season usually marks the strongest sales period of the year.
“Retail sales unexpectedly fell in December on broad-based weakness, suggesting holiday spending did not live up to early reports,” said Scott Hoyt at Moody’s Economy.com.
AFP News
The US Labor Department announced today that a total of 444,000 new jobless claims were made last week. This is an increase of 11,000 over the previous week and is far more than the 3,000 increase expected by analysts.
The increase was partially due to the laying-off of seasonal workers in the retails, manufacturing, and construction sectors and is typically one of the worst employment weeks of the year.
Associated Press
France’s deficit has more than doubled during the first nine months of the year and now stands at 125.8 billion eurod ($187.5 USD). The government blames lower tax revenues and the spending of 30 billion euros ($44.6 billion USD) in stimulus spending.
AFP News
Canada’s path to recovery hit a bump in October as more than 43,000 jobs were lost, pushing the unemployment rate two tenths of a percent higher to 8.6 percent. The result came as a surprise as economists were predicting a gain of 10,000 jobs.
Statistics Canada also said that all of the job losses were part-time, and when incorporating self-employment, there was a net increase of 16,500 full-time jobs. In addition, the report shows that hourly wages rose 3.3 percent compared to the same month one year ago.
The Canadian Press
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