While last week's jobless numbers for new claims showed improvement, this week's took an unexpectedly high jump, according to the Labor Department.
The numbers released Thursday showed that initial jobless claims rose to a seasonally adjusted 640,000, up from a revised 613,000 last week, and slightly above analysts’ expectations of 635,000.
Worse, for the 12th straight week, a nwe record number for people continuing to claim jobless benefits: 6.13 million.
This highlights the fears of many: while the banking industry has provided some decent numbers in terms of revenue and earnings in recent filings, many feel there are still too many toxic assets on the books, and lending remains stagnant. Consumers are still unwilling to spend, and the jobless are still unable to get new jobs.
In an interview with American Public Media's Marketplace, Gary Chaison is a professor of labor relations at Clark University said:
Well, the report is very discouraging. The figures indicate that the recession continues, that we have not reached the bottom of it. And I'm sure there'll be many people who'll try to find encouraging signs in the data -- maybe it hasn't gone up as much as they would expect it to, or maybe there's some leveling off. But I think if we're searching for a turnaround, we haven't found it.
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