The initial unemployment claims numbers went up, the WSJ hed says, "Edge up," but it was an almost 10% jump:
Jobless claims rose last week but remained historically low, indicating the labor market is on strong footing as Covid-19 cases of the Omicron variant decline.
Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased to a seasonally adjusted 248,000 last week from 225,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week moving average, which smooths volatility, fell slightly to 243,250.
I don't think that this is a cause for alarm, the numbers are still OK, but I do think that if the Federal Reserve aggressively raises rates in the next few months, this could trigger a spike in job losses.
It should be note that in addition to consumer prices rising, producer prices are spiking as well, meaning that a rate increase in March is almost certain, with a distinct possibility that we will see a 50 basis point (½%) increase rather than the expected 25 basis point (¼% )increase.
That could be catastrophic economically and politically:
Suppliers sharply boosted prices last month, in a sign upward pressure on already high consumer inflation continued to build at the start of the year.
The Labor Department on Tuesday said the producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions in the economy, rose a seasonally adjusted 1% in January from the prior month, the sharpest rise since May 2021 and a pickup from December’s revised 0.4% rise. The gains reflect pandemic-related disruptions from the Omicron variant of Covid-19 at the start of the year and continued strength in consumer demand, economists said.
Producer prices rose 9.7% on a 12-month basis, nearly the same as the prior month. Stripping out pandemic-driven data distortions still showed that inflation was unusually elevated. Producer prices jumped at a 5.6% annualized rate from the same month two years ago, the fastest pace since records began in 2012 and well above the pre-pandemic peak of 2.9% in October 2018.
0 comments :
Post a Comment