Average weekly hours a record low of 33.0. Stock futures now down. The household survey says we have lost 1.3 million jobs in three months. 17.5% U-6 unemployment. Median duration of unemployment is now 18.7 weeks from 15.4 just 3 months ago – ugly.
Here is an excerpt from the release (bolding added).
The unemployment rate rose [...]

The Department of Labor data released this morning indicated that 512,000 people filed initial claims for unemployment insurance in the latest week.  This is down 20,000 from last week and marks the last data points we are to get on employment before tomorrows employment numbers are released.
All indications are that the number will come in [...]

The data released this morning by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis on personal income somehow managed to show weakness in income and consumption as well as savings.  I see this as proof that Americans are not saving and hence not deleveraging, but they are also so income constrained that their consumption [...]

The Nationwide monthly index of house prices came in this morning showing a 0.4% bump in October from September. While this was less than last month’s 0.9% rise, it was the sixth consecutive month of price increases and it marked the first time in two years that house price in the U.K. were higher year-on-year. [...]

That’s what we seem to be expecting based on the huge uptick in equities since March. While stock markets have long since moved it up a gear, the employment market is stuck in neutral. The latest seasonally-adjusted jobless claims numbers came in at 530,000. The widely-followed four week average is still 526,250 and is not [...]

While a positive number was expected, let’s wait to crunch the numbers before we pop the cork on the Moet – the price index was only 0.8% versus an expected 1.4%. So I will want to see what is happening with nominal GDP.  I also want to see how inventories look given the huge purges [...]

We received word today from the British government that GDP in the UK contracted for a record sixth quarter in Q3 2009. I like Neil Hume’s headline on this one, “GDP shock flop.”

For the latest week’s data for jobless claims, all you need to know is that the 4-week average barely budged and remains just above the 530,000 mark, consistent with a loss of 200,000 jobs. Clearly employment continues to lag at this point in the business cycle.
The Good

Unadjusted initial claims. Actual initial claims came in at [...]

For the latest week, U.S. jobless claims hit 514,000, the lowest level since early January. This brings the widely-tracked four-week average down to 531,500, also a 9-month low. In addition, continuing claims fell below 6 million for the first time since March. All of these seasonally-adjusted data points suggest that the unemployment situation is slowly [...]

Last year at this time I posted “The Economy’s Four Horsemen,” which described macro cause and effect leading into and out of recessions.  When looking at income, spending, output and employment, it is income which is the steer variable going into a downturn.  Year-on-year changes in income precede changes in spending, output, employment and recession. [...]