The weekly figures for first time unemployment claims were released this morning. I have been writing about these numbers for many months now. Today's figures were just more of the same. The figure was 410,000 new claims. This is yet another week above 400,000 where the statistic has languished for more than a third of a year. It is at a point that makes clear that employment is not growing even close to what is needed to keep up with population growth.
In addition to the poor weekly number, the government also released revised productivity figures for the second quarter. They were dismal, and that is putting a sunny face on the number. Productivity decline by over 3 percent. this country cannot see figures like that and expect to have any growth in the economy at all. A productivity decline means that it was more expensive to make things or supply services in the USA than previously. We cannot beat global rivals in the market place if we make our products more expensive and less efficiently.
No comments:
Post a Comment