Jobless claims are starting to drop

The number of people who are newly unemployed are starting to request less jobless benefits. The government said on Thursday that the number of requests for jobless benefits are finally starting to taper off. The unfortunate news is that the number of people who are still receiving unemployment benefits has risen to 6.78 million, which is the highest number on record since 1967.

The Labor Department said that the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits has dropped from 636,000 to 623,000. The number is below the estimates given from analysts of 635,000.

More good news came from the government today saying that demand for “big ticket manufactured goods” posted their second increase in three months in April. This could mean that the manufacturing recession is finally tapering off also.

There was also bad news in the report from Thursday. The government released news saying that sales of new homes were flat in April. Alongside that news, 12% of homeowners were behind on their mortgage payment or were already in foreclosure.

Of course, there were several lay-offs to be reported through the jobless claims. Many of which were directly related to the Auto industry.

Initial jobless claims a year ago were at 378,000, and we were technically in a recession then too. The numbers now are still far from what a prosperous economy should be functioning at. With jobless claims rising, even if they aren’t rising at the rate that some were expecting, many are expecting the unemployment to climb from 8.9% in April to 10% by the end of the year. 5.7 million jobs have been lost since December 2007 – The most since World War 2.

California ended up reporting the largest increase in claims of only 5,447. The increases could be directly attributed to layoffs in construction, trade and service industries that tend to cater to higher end clientele. At the same time, Michigan reported a decrease in claims. A drop of 9,758 in that state was said to be directly related to the decrease in layoffs in the auto industry.

It is nice to see some improvement in the jobless claims across the board. Again, as a new graduate any news coming from the employment sector in the positive direction is welcomed news. I’m sure there are plenty of people who are either unemployed or who are worried about their own job security that are looking at this news and breathing a tiny sigh of relief at the same time.