Guangdong, the province that produces about a third of China’s exports, on Thursday announced plans to raise its minimum wage more than 20 per cent, fuelling inflation fears and dealing a blow to manufacturers emerging from the global credit crisis.
Posted March 19th, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
Posted March 17th, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
U.K.’s claimant count measure of unemployment dropped by 32,300 in February, the largest monthly decrease since November 1997. This comes after a downwardly revised gain of 5,300 in January.
The unemployment rate was down 0.1 at 7.8%
The level of overall unemployment has now fallen slightly for three months, surprising most economists.
However, the fall has been achieved thanks to the large numbers of people leaving the labour force. The number economically inactive shot up by 149,000 in the 3 months to January to a record level of 8.16m, driven largely by an increase of 98,000 in the number of students. The total amounted to 21.5 per cent of the workforce, the highest since 2004.
Posted March 12th, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
The jobless rate fell to a 10-month low of 8.2 per cent in February from 8.3 per cent, Statistics Canada said Friday.
Employment has been climbing since July, with 159,000 new jobs created in the past seven months.
Posted March 9th, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
I read the NFIB survey results thinking that things were still not very difficult. National Banks Financial economists are seeing things with somewhat rosier glasses:
The rising tide in GDP is not lifting all boats equally. The small business optimism index (NFIB) decreased 1.3 points in February to 88.0. The biggest decline in the sub-components related to expectations about an improving economy. On the other hand, the biggest change in the positive direction was seen in earnings trends. Despite the decline in the headline number, we do not think there is a need to hit the panic button.
Posted March 5th, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
The BLS employment report surprised on the upside in February. Payroll jobs were down 36,000 on the month, but this outcome was much better than consensus expectations of a decline of 68,000 and our own estimate calling for a weather-related drop of 150,000. This outcome is all the more encouraging given that BLS counted a million workers who could not get to work during to work on the month. So what is the underlying trend in U.S. labour markets?
Posted March 4th, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
The Monster Employment Index rose by ten points in
February, as employers resumed hiring activity after January’s seasonal lull. The long-term growth rate turned positive, with the Index up 2 percent year-on-year, for the first time since December 2007 suggesting some improvement in the underlying demand for labor.
Posted March 4th, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
Only downbeat part is employment which contracted again in February.
The NMI (Non-Manufacturing Index) registered 53 percent in February, 2.5 percentage points higher than
the seasonally adjusted 50.5 percent registered in January, indicating growth in the non-manufacturing sector. The Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index increased 2.6 percentage points to 54.8 percent, reflecting growth for the third consecutive month. The New Orders Index increased 0.3 percentage point to 55 percent, and the Employment Index increased 4 percentage points to 48.6 percent. The Prices Index decreased 0.8 percentage point to 60.4 percent in February, indicating an increase in prices paid from January.
Posted March 3rd, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
Major U.S. companies announced in February that they would cut 42,090 jobs, the fewest number of planned layoffs since 2006, according to an informal tally released Wednesday by outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas.
February’s total of 42,090 planned layoffs was 41% below January’s 71,482 and 77% lower than the 186,350 job cuts tracked in February 2009, at the depth of the recession. It was the lowest monthly total since July 2006. (…)
Posted March 2nd, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
(…) Spain’s jobless claims rose by 82,132, or 2%, to 4.1 million in February from January. February jobless claims were up 19% on a year-to-year basis. (…)
Spain is grappling with the collapse of a labor-intensive construction industry that has pushed the wider economy into a deep recession. The government expects the Spanish economy to return to growth in the first half of this year and start creating jobs again toward the end of the year.
According to Monday data from Eurostat, Spain had an unemployment rate of 18.8% in January, nearly twice the 9.9% rate for the wider euro zone.
Posted March 1st, 2010 by Denis Ouellet
Eurostat said that the unemployment rate in the 16 countries that use the euro was 9.9% for a third consecutive month in January.
Eurostat said 38,000 people joined unemployment queues across the euro zone in January, bringing the total number of jobless to 15.7 million. Some 2.2 million people lost their jobs across the single currency bloc in the 12 months to January. (…)
The unemployment rate in the wider European Union was also stable at 9.5%.
