Jobless Claims Spike to 454K

Blame it on the rain... or snow

The Labor Department is pinning this week's spike in Jobless Claims on the bad weather. While the amount of snow was enough to close government offices across New York, Boston and Philadelphia, like the unemployment office, I doubt any amount of fluff is enough to keep a poor man away from his check or a Greek reader away from the truth.

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Jobless Claims Spike!

Weekly Initial Jobless Claims, which had been flirting with the psychological threshold of 400K for weeks, reconsidered with conviction today. Jobless Claims spiked through the period ended January 22, 2011, rising by 51,000 over the prior week, to 454K. The increase was so significant that it took the four-week moving average up by 15,750, to 428,750.

This week, we also saw the increase in the insured unemployment rate that we had expected to find last week. The rate increased a tenth of a point to 3.2% through January 15, and the count rose by 94,000, to 3.991 million. However, a recent survey showed that more employers are planning to increase hiring this year than at any time over the last decade. Meanwhile, the December NFIB survey showed small business lost confidence at last check. And be warned, next week's Employment Situation Report should show an increase in the unemployment rate in January.

Much of the blame for this past week's jobs demise is being attributed to weather, but it's also a seasonally slow period for hiring, or for doing much of anything. You might have noticed based on traffic to your favorite restaurant in January. Weather might just be a factor, given the amount of snowfall seen through various storms in the Northeast, which shut down government offices, including the Unemployment Office. In any event, the Jobless Claims count offered a dampener for stocks today, with the Dow unchanged at the hour of publishing here.

FYI:

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Jan. 8 were in Alaska (7.5 percent), Oregon (5.4), Wisconsin (5.4), Idaho (5.3), Pennsylvania (5.2), Montana (5.1), Puerto Rico (5.0), Michigan (4.9), California (4.8), Connecticut (4.7), and New Jersey (4.7).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Jan. 15 were in Florida (+6,646), Nevada (+242), and the Virgin Islands (+103), while the largest decreases were in New York (-28,714), Georgia (-19,429), North Carolina (-16,132), Pennsylvania (-14,859), and California (-14,309).



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). The day’s earnings included Deere (NYSE: DE), Tiffany (NYSE: TIF), China Cord Blood (NYSE: CO) and Frontline (NYSE: FRO).

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