I suppose many were sighing in relief Thursday when Weekly Jobless Claims did not deteriorate, given the recent economic, consumer and layoff data seemingly pointing toward that result. However, with the claims count stuck in the mud at 400K, it offers no indication of employer hiring for the near-term either. Finally, I wonder how you feel about my argument concluding this report, and whether you think it makes you a communist to care about your neighbor more than profits. 
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Is it Communist to Care About Your Neighbor More than Profits?
The Department of Labor reported Weekly Jobless Claims for the period ending July 30, 2011, and while the data was kind enough to stink about the same as usual (and not worse), it neither offered any sign of future labor market improvement ahead of the government’s monthly employment report.
Unemployment insurance claims were measured at 400K in the period, 1,000 less than the prior week’s revised rate (up 3,000). The four-week moving average improved by 6,750, but remained in troubling territory at 407,750. Insured unemployment for the period ending
July 23rd stuck at 3.0%, with the total number up 10K to 3,730,000. The tally of Americans receiving some form of unemployment benefit, including the unemployment insurance extension program, improved by about 75K in the period ending
July 16th.
You get the picture: there was no real improvement this week, and neither has there been the kind of gains reflective of stable economic recovery as yet. America’s businesses have determined to squeeze as much profit as they can out of the employees they have, given the uncertain global economic environment. Finally, our great productivity derived from wonderful technological gains and the wisdom of the Ivy League consultancies is working against us. And the jobs we do create are too often overseas, where it’s much easier and cheaper to hire a local guy than to move some little town lug to Shanghai.
And even as business improved through last year, we barely noticed the gains in the real count of the unemployed and underemployed. Rather, our corporate managers are geared toward beating EPS estimates, raising dividends and return on equity, not the employment of our neighbors. I’ve got a problem with that, and I don’t think that makes me a Communist. Our government should be finding ways to inspire corporations to hire some of the guys who have been on the street for more than two years, like maybe reminding some of the lucky hiring managers who have kept their jobs what it’s like to eat a potato for dinner. We’ll be better for it, whatever the return on investment is.
We Like to Share the State Data with Our Readers:The
highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending July 16 were in Puerto Rico (5.0), Pennsylvania (4.5), California (4.0), New Jersey (4.0), Alaska (3.9) Oregon (3.9), Connecticut (3.8), Rhode Island (3.8), Nevada (3.7) and Arizona (3.5).
The
largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 23 were in Maine (+77), Wyoming (+34), North Dakota (+30), New Mexico (+13), and South Dakota (+3) while the largest decreases were in California (-23,689), New York (-8,037), North Carolina (-7,511), Georgia (-6,399), and South Carolina (-5,837).
Article should interest investors in Paychex (Nasdaq: PAYX), Manpower (NYSE: MAN), Robert Half International (NYSE: RHI), 51Job Inc. (Nasdaq: JOBS), Monster World Wide (NYSE: MWW), Korn/Ferry International (NYSE: KFY), Administaff (NYSE: ASF), Kforce (Nasdaq: KFRC), TrueBlue (NYSE: TBI), Dice Holdings (NYSE: DHX), Kelly Services (Nasdaq: KELYA), SFN Group (NYSE: SFN), CDI Corp. (NYSE: CDI), Cross Country Healthcare (Nasdaq: CCRN), On Assignment (Nasdaq: ASGN), AMN Healthcare Services (NYSE: AHS), Barrett Business Services (Nasdaq: BBSI), Hudson Highland Group (Nasdaq: HHGP), StarTek (NYSE: SRT), RCM Technologies (Nasdaq: RCMT), VirtualScopics (Nasdaq: VSCP), American Surgical (OTC: ASRG.OB), Medical Connections (OTC: MCTH.OB), iGen Networks (OTC: IGEN.OB), St. Joseph (OTC: STJO.OB), General Employment Enterprises (NYSE: JOB), Total Neutraceutical (OTC: TNUS.OB), TeamStaff (Nasdaq: TSTF), Stratum (OTC: STTH.OB), Purespectrum (OTC: PSRU.OB), Corporate Resource Services (OTC: CRRS.OB), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC), TD Bank (NYSE: TD), PNC Bank (NYSE: PNC), General Electric (NYSE: GE), Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Alcoa (NYSE: AA), American Express (NYSE: AXP), Boeing (NYSE: BA), Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO), Chevron (NYSE: CVX), DuPont (NYSE: DD), Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS), Home Depot (NYSE: HD), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), Kraft (NYSE: KFT), Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), 3M (NYSE: MMM), Merck (NYSE: MRK), Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), AT&T (NYSE: T), Travelers (NYSE: TRV), United Technologies (NYSE: UTX), Verizon (NYSE: VZ), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM).
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