Jobs Still A Worry
Posted On Thursday, June 11, 2009 at at 2:16 PM by Finance FanaticDespite last Friday's surprising better than expected jobless report, initial claims that were released today, show that our employment problems are far from over. 601K was the reported number, which fell in line with expectations, but many felt the actual data should have been far better than the low ball expectations. Harsher unemployment conditions is something I've been continuing to warn about, so it's no big surprise to me to see the larger number.
However, as always, certain analysts have their rebuttal to a bad employment report. Now, some economists are saying that a continuing bad employment number isn't too much tied to getting GDP back in the positive. They compare it to our "recession" in 2002 and 2003 and that, despite a sluggish unemployment number we had at the time, we crossed over positive with GDP. First of all, comparing the so called recession of 2003 to our current crisis is like comparing watermelons to peas. Other than a contracting GDP and declining stocks, there is not much similarity to them. Also, it was an attack on the US that caused much of the turmoil during that time period. Today we see ourselves faced with a global crisis, both economically and dealing with currency, we've seen a giant failure in the banking sector, real estate markets reach new lows, a strong crash in the stock market, as well as all of the other economic problems we currently find ourselves in. So to compare the two is absolute ludicrous.
As I have always said, I believe residential home values and employment will lead us out of this crisis. Both are so strongly tied to consumer confidence and consumer spending, that I believe it's the combination of the two are economy needs to jump start this very frail economy. Unfortunately, I don't see much light from either of the two sectors and therefore cannot think that we are turning this ship around at the end of 2009, like many have said. So we'll see how long these economists keep THEIR jobs. Happy Trading.