While the national unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent from 10 percent in January, the U.S. Labor Department reported Wednesday that 30 states actually saw an increase in unemployment that month. Five states reported record-high unemployment, including California (12.5 percent), South Carolina (12.6 percent), Florida (11.9 percent), North Carolina (11.1 percent) and Georgia (10.4 percent). The [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The U.S. Department of Labor reports the number of job openings in the public and private-sectors increased by 193,000 in January to a seasonally adjusted 2.7 million, which represents a 7.6 percent increase and is the highest level since February 2009. The job openings rate, which measures available jobs as a percentage of total employment, also [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, March 2, 2010
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor, 400,000 Americans will lose their unemployment benefits in the first weeks of March if Congress does not extend unemployment insurance benefits in the coming days. By May, nearly 3 million people would be left without benefits, the Department of Labor reports. The U.S. House of Representatives [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, February 25, 2010
New claims for unemployment insurance jumped unexpectedly last week. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, jobless claims rose by 22,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 496,000 for the week ending Feb 20. According to the Associated Press, Wall Street analysts expected claims to drop to 455,000. The four-week average, which is considered to be a more accurate [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, February 18, 2010
The U.S. Department of Labor reports there were five “mass layoffs” in Hawaii during the fourth quarter of 2009, which resulted in the loss of 467 private nonagricultural jobs. A mass layoff, as defined by the Department of Labor, is when there are 50 or more initial claims for unemployment benefit insurance made from one employer [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, February 18, 2010
There were 473,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance during the week ending Feb. 13, an increase of 31,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 442,000, according to seasonally adjusted data provided by the U.S. Department of Labor. The four-week moving average was 467,500, a decrease of 1,500 from the previous week’s revised average of [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, January 21, 2010
Today’s news from the Labor Department is bad, but may not be as bad as it first appears. Initial claims for unemployment rose by 36,000 last week, well above the anticipated 4,000. Worse than that is the four week average, which ended its 20 week streak declines with an increase of 7,000. [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, January 21, 2010
Today the Department of Labor announced that $190 million in grants for green jobs training will be distributed to organizations in 34 states. These grants are a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The purpose of these funds is to train workers for jobs in energy efficiency and the renewable energy sector. [...]
Continue reading...Monday, January 18, 2010
According to a report released Friday by Georgia’s Department of Labor, 100,000 laid off workers in the state filed initial claims for unemployment benefits in December. This was an increase of almost 40% over November’s initial claims. Initial claims came most heavily from the manufacturing, trade, construction and administrative and support service sectors. The labor department [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, January 14, 2010
While week-over-week jobless claims were higher than expected for the week ending Jan. 9, the four-week moving average of initial claims fell to 440,750, the lowest level since August 2008. The latest unemployment figures were released by the Department of Labor Thursday. The 444,000 initial claims filed this past week was an increase of 11,000 from [...]
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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