State jobless rate stays put
Posted on November 19, 2009 at 3:09 pmTennessee’s unemployment rate was 10.5 percent in October, even with September’s number and almost 4 points higher than that of a year ago. The biggest gainers and losers during the month were seasonal sectors: Schools added jobs, leisure and hospitality companies shed them.
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The big picture looks better
Posted on at 11:18 amThe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has doubled its 2010 growth forecast for the world’s largest economies.
“We now have numbers that support a recovery in motion,” Jorgen Elmeskov, the OECD’s acting chief economist, said in an interview. “It’s still a slow recovery because of considerable headwinds from the need to adjust the balance sheets of households, enterprises and financial sectors.”
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Hotwire: Nashville hotel prices sliding
Posted on November 18, 2009 at 9:27 am
The latest Hotwire Hotel Rate Report has Nashville in the top 10 for first time. Not that that’s a good thing: The booking service says local prices are down 20 percent from a year ago, largely because hotel operators held off on repricing their rooms until early this year.
Dr. Doom sees 11% unemployment for two years
Posted on November 16, 2009 at 12:38 pmNouriel Roubini says the U.S.’ high jobless rate isn’t dropping anytime soon and risks causing a double-dip recession.
Other measures tell the same ugly story: The average length of unemployment is at an all time high; the ratio of job applicants to vacancies is 6 to 1; initial claims are down but continued claims are very high and now millions of unemployed are resorting to the exceptional extended unemployment benefits programs and are staying in them longer.
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The housing market question with no easy answer
Posted on at 7:26 amBarry Ritholtz asks it:
If stabilization comes only through government subsidies and artificially propped up home prices, is it truly stabilization?
You could ask similar questions of the auto industry and a few other sectors of today’s economy. The folks who months ago said we ought to bite the bullet in housing and banking in order to more quickly begin an authentic recovery — albeit from a slightly deeper hole — are looking wiser with every passing day.
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Sobering thoughts on lower pay
Posted on November 13, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Gerald O’Driscoll points out that the lower wages being handed to many people returning to the work force are the “real-world consequences of bad macroeconomic policy.”
[M]uch accumulated savings have been lost due to capital misallocation. In order to be competitive in the global economy, the U.S. must become a country of lower wages. And we are witnessing that painful adjustment in real time.
High jobless number here to stay
Posted on November 11, 2009 at 11:26 amEconomist David Rosenberg, who thinks the jobless rate will soon top 12 percent, breaks down the dynamics of the unemployment rate and the bleak prospects of it falling anytime soon.
Think about it. We haven’t yet hit bottom on employment but that will happen at some point. Employment is not going to zero, of that we can assure you. But when we do start to see the economic clouds part in a more decisive fashion, what are employers likely to do first? Well, naturally they will begin to boost the workweek and just getting back to pre-recession levels would be the same as hiring more than two million people. Then there are the record number of people who got furloughed into part-time work and again, they total over nine million, and these folks are not counted as unemployed even if they are working considerably fewer days than they were before the credit crunch began.
So the business sector has a vast pool of resources to draw from before they start tapping into the ranks of the unemployed or the typical 100,000-125,000 new entrants into the labour force when the economy turns the corner. Hence the unemployment rate is going to very likely be making new highs long after the recession is over — perhaps even years.
Mortgage market rises closer to the surface
Posted on November 10, 2009 at 10:19 amMarket watcher Zillow says slightly fewer mortgages were underwater last quarter and that home values in the 150-plus cities it tracks stabilized. The tax credit will help get housing through the winter, Zillow’s economist says, but the question is whether the thaw will show us a market that finally is ready again to stand on its own.
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Williamson County: Where the tax credit draws in lower-priced homebuyers
Posted on at 7:44 am
The first question that came to my mind after seeing the positive Nashville-area home sales headline number yesterday was, “OK, but how much did prices drop?” Turns out they fell by a smaller amount than they have for most of the year.
At least on the MSA level. Data from the Williamson County Association of Realtors shows a sharp drop in the pricier county’s median home price since the spring. In the first half of this year, that number was at $357,500 or above all but one month. In the past three months, it has averaged $307,000.
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Rising, but it could be worse
Posted on November 9, 2009 at 11:25 am
First American CoreLogic has the latest set of regional delinquency and foreclosure numbers, which are still worsening — but at a slower pace than the state and national data sets. Click at left to see foreclosures by local ZIP codes and then check here to compare the September chart’s color to March’s.
SEE ALSO: Plenty more info from the CoreLogic crowd.
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Think the headline jobs number was bad?
Posted on at 7:59 amThen you don’t want to dig into the nitty gritty.
[T]he U.S. population is significantly larger today (about 308 million) than in the early ’80s (about 228 million) when the number of part time workers almost reached 7 million. Still - even adjusted for population - part time workers is at record levels.
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A jobs jolt
Posted on November 6, 2009 at 10:49 amI know the basic argument that employment is a lagging indicator, but who’s going to stand up and say this number won’t make for a dismal holiday shopping season? And keep in mind that the official unemployment rate doesn’t account for people who have simply stopped looking for work. Add them in and we’re getting way too close to 20 percent.
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How did a financial crisis and an economic downturn result in higher productivity numbers?
Posted on November 5, 2009 at 1:28 pmMichael Mandel walks you through the numbers:
This morning’s productivity numbers showed a huge gain in output per hour in the third quarter—up at an annual rate of 9.5% in the nonfarm business sector.
But here’s something else. If we are to believe these numbers, the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression has actually produced a productivity gain of 5.1% since the downturn started in the fourth quarter of 2007.
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Seeing red
Posted on at 11:23 am
Barry Ritholtz passes on a graphic we’d all like to see be much blander.
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Services sector expands
Posted on November 4, 2009 at 1:52 pmFrom the Institute for Supply Management:
“The Non-Manufacturing Business Activity Index increased 0.1 percentage point to 55.2 percent. This is the third consecutive month this index has reflected growth since September 2008. The New Orders Index increased 1.4 percentage points to 55.6 percent, and the Employment Index decreased 3.2 percentage points to 41.1 percent. The Prices Index increased 4.2 percentage points to 53 percent in October, indicating an increase in prices paid from September. According to the NMI, nine non-manufacturing industries reported growth in October. Respondents’ comments remain mixed and are mostly cautious about business conditions and the overall economy.”
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