Pope Praises U.S., But Warns Of Secular Challenges Pope Benedict XVI warned that a secular tradition often prevented Americans from living their beliefs fully.... Read Full Article PBL Gets Approval To Sell Media Assets Payday for James Packer as State Government clears the way for Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd to collect $4.5 billion for the sale of half-share in its media assets.... Read Full Article News Analysis: In China, A Stake In Blackstone Stirs Uncertainty Opinion in China remains divided on whether the government is leaping into deals without a clear investment strategy.... Read Full Article Sage Ousts Top Two US Chiefs Over Performance Sage Group, Britain’s biggest software company, purged the chief executive and the finance director of its American business today.... Read Full Article Slovenia Joins Euro’s Anniversary Celebration The effect of the euro in your pocket Just 16 years after it introduced the tolar to celebrate its independence from Yugoslavia, Slovenia will turn its back on its national currency today and become... Read Full Article |
US Jobless Figures Offer No Long-term CheerWall Street today interpreted better than expected jobs data as a short term blip and warned that unemployment numbers for this month will be far weaker as a result. Despite this, the Dow Jones added 66.4 point taking the index to 13,076.2 while in London, the FTSE 100 rose 115.4 points to 6,202.7. According to official Labour department data published in Washington today, the number of Americans signing on for unemployment benefits for the first time, rose by 20,000 in April. Economists had been expecting a rise of 75,000. Overall, around 5 per cent of the American workforce is currently unemployed, down slightly from 5.1 per cent in March. It is widely expected that 6 per cent of the workforce will be out of a job by the end of the year. Related Links Rising US jobless rate fuels recession fears Job figures add fuel to US recession fears Bush says no recession, Wall Street disagreesMost worryingly, the sharpest increases in unemployment emerged across the manufacturing sector which is benefiting from weakness of the dollar making American goods cheaper in overseas markets. Rob Carnell, US economist at ING, th Dutch bank, said: Almost all of the decline came from the manufacturing sector - the one bit of the US economy that should be seeing some support from a weaker dollar. Manufacturing employment fell 46K, in line with yesterdays [Thursdays] weak manufacturing ISM employment survey. Jobs within the construction business also fell sharply - down 61,000 - in April signalling further declines across the US housing market. Builders have sought to halt any new residential building projects with the US housing market suffering a severe glut of unsold homes. Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics, said: All the payroll improvement was in the service-providing sector, where business services rose 39,000, compared to the prior three-month average of minus 34,000. This is noise, perhaps due to Easter seasonal problems; the seasonal factor was 81,000 bigger than in April 07. Expect much weaker headlines in May. Tag CloudExternal InformationAdditional InformationTempus: Good, not great...Link by Link: Documents Borne by Winds of Free Speech... Market Values: It’s Calm. Look Out for a Storm.... Alastair Darling forced into a further retreat on business tax plans... Where Am I?News Main Page - Business - US Jobless Figures Offer No Long-term Cheer |
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