April 17, 2003
The quick economic picture
The quick economic picture
Unemployment spiked this month, even as the war with Iraq wound down, according to today's Department of Labor report on weekly unemployment filings, with new filings (seasonally adjusted -- which is voodoo for "this is the lowest possible number we can get away with") rising to 442,000 in the week ending April 12.
The Dow is bouncing back from this news in the afternoon, but the expected rush of relief that Iraq was "beaten" (a highly dubious assumption) has not materialized. In fact, wer'e sliding backward. While a number of tech companies beat expectations, the wider consumer economy is still faltering. I've been saying since the beginning of the year that the Nasdaq will outperform the Dow because the tech-heavy Nasdaq is populated by companies that washed out 18 to 24 months ago. Nevertheless, the Dow companies are still hitting the skids. Fortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has had funding for the Mass Layoff Statistics program restored, so we can keep an eye on this. Notice in the graphic below that mass layoffs are currently down 14.9 percent from a year ago, when tech companies were laying off people in droves.
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