Our Changing Globe

Posts Tagged ‘layoffs’

A just released report by the Commerce Department shows that retail sales unexpectedly dropped by 0.4% in April, following a revised drop of 1.3% in March and analysts contributed the drop to the biggest loss of household wealth on record, falling home values and rising unemployment.

Most economists had predicted that retail sales would rise by 0.2% after a 1% decrease a month earlier.

Bill Cheney, who is the chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services Inc. said in an interview that, “The second quarter is going to be tough. Consumers are losing their jobs, concerned about losing their jobs and losing wealth”.

Mike Niemira who is the chief economist at ICSC was a little bit less downbeat and said, “We’re still working our way through the slowdown. I think it will get better as the year progresses. The month of May will still be tough and I suspect by the summer that things will be a little broader in terms of the improvement”.

The decline in sales was led by falling demand at furniture, clothing, grocery and electronics’ stores, and even as fuel prices rose, receipts at service stations fell, indicating perhaps that Americans were driving less.

Clothing sales fell by 0.5% and sales at general-merchandise stores fell by 0.1%.

Auto sales unexpectedly gained by 0.2% after dropping by 2% in March, with automobiles selling at a 9.3 million annual pace in April, compared with a 9.9 million rate in March.

Chrysler, whose U.S. whose sales were down by 48% from the same month last year, started offering rebates of up to $6,000 on May 6 and the offers will continue until the end of the month.

The Labor Department reported last week that payrolls fell by 539,000 workers last month making it the smallest drop since October, but it took the unemployment rate to 8.9%, which is the highest level since 1983 and economists expect it to average 9.6% in 2010.

Read the rest of this entry »

1.8 million jobs were lost in the last three months with a total of 3.6 million having been lost since the beginning of 2008 which makes the losses the worst on record since December 1974 and the job losses over the last three months are the worst since the end of WW2!

Moreover, the unemployment rate is now at its highest level since September, 1992 and the sad story gets even grimmer because a report that came out on Friday also shows 2.6 million people have been out of work for more than six months which is the highest long-term unemployment figure since 1983.

Will things soon get better?

Sung Won Sohn who is an economics professor at Cal State University-Channel Islands said that he expects the unemployment to rise above 9% by the end of the year and added that monthly job losses might soon top 800,000. “This has just begun, hiring is falling off dramatically and layoffs are accelerating. The layoffs have become an almost popular thing to do for corporations. Many businesses are scared. They want to take precautionary steps”.

John Silvia, who is the chief economist for Wachovia said, “The breadth of job losses now surpasses the prior two recessions”.

The report also shows the manufacturing sector as having shed 207,000 jobs last month and the construction industry having cut 111,000 jobs while the services sector which provides more than two-thirds of the nation’s employment base also reported widespread losses.

The business and professional services sector which includes lawyers, accountants and technical services lost 121,000 jobs, the finance sector 42,000, retailers 45,000 and the leisure and hospitality sector lost 28,000.

In fact the only sectors to show a small increase in employment were education, health services and the government.

So perhaps there’s something good to be said for ‘big government’ after all.

Read the rest of this entry »