Job Market

It’s 3:00 a.m. and I can’t sleep. A couple of days ago, I read a story on the high unemployment in Europe and how the young find it so difficult to find a job (“Europe’s Lost Generation: No Jobs or Hope for The Young,” The Globe and Mail,…

The Federal Reserve just met for its Federal Open Market Committee meeting and I can tell you I was more nervous after reading the Fed statement than before. It became clearer the Fed is quite nervous about the condition of the economy and where it is heading. The…

Stocks have declined for seven straight days to August 1, despite the debt resolution approved by the Senate and White House that’s waiting to be passed by the House of Reps. There was no doubt in my mind and the thinking of many others that it would be…

Today, we’ll hear and read stories about how the May job numbers are worse than expected, that the U.S. economy is starting to show signs of weakness, and that we’ll never get the economy going. Well, my readers can’t say I didn’t warn them. In fact, I’ve been…

The stagnation in the equity market is both natural and expected after a successful earnings season and a solid run-up in share prices. While the trading action isn’t robust, I view the market as holding up very well all things considered. Mediocrity seems to describe the state of…

The key to growing the economy is creating jobs and spending. So far, the economic renewal has been decent given that it has largely been a jobless recovery. But things appear to be changing on the positive side, as the critical non-farm payrolls reading for April saw the…

There are currently about 15.1 million Americans unemployed and looking for jobs while struggling to make ends meet. We are seeing record numbers at food banks across the nation. The government is positive that jobs are being generated, but tell that to those who are barely holding on.…

Jobs are picking up steam and this will help add some drive to the economic recovery. In February, the key non-farm payrolls generated 192,000 new jobs, above the consensus estimate of 185,000 and the upward revised 63,000 in January. Better yet, the unemployment rate fell to 8.9%, below…

There are presently about 15.1 million Americans unemployed and looking for jobs while struggling to make ends meet. The problem is that there are only about 2.9 million available jobs. Do the math. That is five unemployed workers competing for one job. You don’t have to be a…

I look at the U.S. job report numbers released by the Labor Department on Friday, and I just need to laugh inside. It was a terrible report. But the news media didn’t see it that way. Most news sources said that the stock market was rallying on Friday…

While all eyes this morning will be on the U.S. employment numbers, investors are looking at the wrong job numbers. It’s common sense that, as the U.S. economy improves and as U.S. corporations improve earnings, there will be more hires. It’s also a fact that the job numbers…

Over two million workers lost their unemployment claims yesterday. And now to make matters worse, the highly anticipated non-farm payrolls were dismal. In what was a shock, we saw non-farm payrolls generating a mere 9,000 new jobs, which is way below the estimate of 150,000 new jobs. Moreover,…

Did you fight the masses and venture out for deals on Black Friday? I didn’t, as I try to avoid crowds. But it appears that I was not in the majority: an estimated 212 million shoppers ventured to stores and online sites on the weekend, up from 195…

Earnings have been largely better than expected early on. Revenue growth has been mixed and so far many companies have maintained guidance going forward, not increasing it. The reality is that corporate America continues to be apprehensive towards growth and is refraining from offering optimistic opinions that may…

The key to this economic recovery sits squarely on the shoulders of consumers. Simply, consumers need to spend in order to drive the economic renewal. We did see stronger than expected Durable Goods Orders for August. Excluding autos, Durable Goods increased a nice two percent compared to the…

Markets appear to have found some legs after trading largely in the red from late July to late August. The major stock indices have closed higher in five of the last six sessions to September 3. With the buying, the DOW and Russell 2000 have moved into positive…

When the sky opened and the bailout money started pouring down, no one really worried about the labor market. With that much money, the raging unemployment in the U.S. and globally was going to fix itself, right? Wrong! Back in early 2009, when the Federal Reserve was designing…

— "Calling the Trend" Column, by George Leong, B.Comm. The economy continues to show encouraging signs, but, for the growth to pick up, we need to see marked improvement in both the jobs and housing markets. This has been my contention for quite some time. Without the confidence…

— "Calling the Trend" Column, by George Leong, B.Comm. By the time you read this, President Obama would have delivered his second annual State of the Union address on Wednesday at a time when there has been much debate of how effective he has been as commander and…

— by George Leong, B. Comm. President Obama is in London at the G20 meetings on the condition of the global economic crisis. These meetings will be significant, as there must continue to be a global concerted effort to stabilize the economies and generate economic recovery. The U.S.…