The number of people unemployed in the UK rose by 53,000 to 2.51 million during the three months to March, official figures have shown.
The unemployment total is now at its highest level since December 1994.
However, the total number of people claiming unemployment benefit fell in April by 27,100 to 1.52 million – a sharper fall than expected.
The rate of unemployment remained at 8%, the Office for National Statistics said.
BBC News
Canada’s merchandise trade surplus unexpectedly narrowed in March, as prices for energy exports fell and industrial goods imports rose the fastest since 1992.
The surplus shrank to C$254 million, Statistics Canada said today in Ottawa. The result was smaller than forecast by any of 19 economists in a Bloomberg Survey, which had a median surplus estimate of C$1.6 billion.
Canada has returned to trade surpluses this year after the global recession triggered the first deficits since 1976 amid slumping automobile production and commodity prices. The Bank of Canada may become the first Group of Seven central bank to raise interest rates on June 1, yields on interest-rate futures show, after the country had economic growth and inflation faster than Governor Mark Carney had predicted.
Bloomberg
The number of new claims for jobless benefits for the week ending March 27 fell by 6,000 to 439,000. The overall trend for the past two months has been a gradual slowing in the rate of job losses, but the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits has remained steady. Worse still, the number of people receiving extended benefits after their normal unemployment benefits run out, continues to increase.
The fact that the total number of unemployed continues to grow – albeit at a slower pace than earlier in the year – provides further evidence to the vulnerability of recovery later in the year.
“Firms that have needed workers but refused to hire will start doing that,” Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors Inc. in Holland, Pennsylvania, said before the report. “But once they add those workers, they may not be in any mood to hire any more. That would lead to sluggish gains reappearing later in 2010.”
Source: Bloomberg
Speculation continues to grow that China could allow the trading of index futures as early as this Spring. Recent reports indicate that the China Securities Regulatory Commission has won approval to launch index futures, and it is expected that the first futures contract to be offered will be based on the CSI 300 Index – a compilation of three hundred stocks traded on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. The CSI 300 is weighted primarily with insurance and financial stocks, but also includes companies active in mining, energy, information technology, and the consumer goods sector.
An index futures contract – like any form of futures contract – is an agreement to buy or sell a product or service at a future date, and at an agreed upon price. The price for the futures contract is ¬derived by calculating a forward price based on the current value of the index, multiplied by a certain amount.
In the case of the CSI 300 index future contract, 300 yuan is the designated multiplier amount, and investors will be required to deposit 10 percent of the total contract value in order to buy or sell short, a CSI 300 futures contract. Using yesterday’s close of 3545.19 as an example, the total value of the contract would be 1,063,557 yuan (3545.19 X 300) – taking into account the 10 percent requirement, it would cost 106,356 yuan for an investor to buy or sell short a single contract.
Futures Trading
The ability to deal in futures contracts is seen as an important step in the evolution of trading in China. To date, investor’s wishing to deal in equities, could only buy stocks and could only profit when these stocks gained in price; however, with the ability to short index futures, investors will soon have the means to make profits in a declining market as well.
Investors are also expected to use futures contracts as a means to hedge open positions. Shorting an index futures contract that mirrors the individual long positions in an investor’s portfolio, helps to reduce the risk of losses in the equity positions should individual stock prices fall. This will likely be an extremely popular option for equity traders that have suffered through the notorious volatility experienced by China’s primary exchanges. In early August of 2009 for example, the CSI 300 index was trading at just under 3800 – by the end of August, however, it fell more than 25 percent to 2830 in just a few weeks! For the remainder of the year, the index continued to “whipsaw”, coming close to the August high on several occasions, but ultimately falling short, but still closing the year at nearly 3,600.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK lost 21,000 jobs between August and October, bringing the total number of officially unemployed to 2.49 million. The good news however, is that this was the lowest three-month total since the second quarter of 2009.
“It is still tough for a lot of people and we still expect unemployment to increase again in the New Year. So we are determined to do more, supporting a total of 400,000 extra youth opportunities over the next 18 months,” said Yvette Cooper, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
BBC News
A weaker US dollar helped boost exports to $136.8 billion for the month of October – a 2.6 percent increase over September. The overall trade deficit fell to $32.9bn compared to September’s downwardly revised $35.7bn figure.
BBC News
For the first time since mid-September, 2008, the US weekly new jobless claims came in under 500,000 to a less-than-expected 466,000. In addition, the total number of people receiving unemployment benefits fell by 190,000 to 5.42 million people.
Associated Press
Consumer spending rose more than expected in October gaining 0.7 percent over September. Federal Reserve officials have cautioned that consumer spending could decline in the coming months however, as rising unemployment and difficulty in arranging consumer credit loans could see a reduction in demand for big-ticket items including autos, home, and appliances.
Associated Press
The US Commerce Department announced this morning that orders for durable goods unexpectedly fell by 0.6 percent in October after gaining 2 percent in September. Much of the decrease can be attributed to a reduction in Department of Defense spending, and if excluded, demand for durable goods would have increased 0.4 percent for the month.
Associated Press
For the first time since 1983, US unemployment has broken through the 10 percent level with most analysts predicting higher rates to follow. Almost 16 million Americans are now out of work and another 190,000 jobs were eliminated in October, marking the 22nd straight month that the US workforce has contracted.
One of the more startling findings in the latest employment report, is that the number of Americans who have been out of work for six months or longer, rose to a new record high of 5.6 million, or 35.6 of the total of unemployed people.
Associated Press
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