Jobless Claims Down from Initial Highs
January 2nd, 2009 at 12:34 am - by admin
The Christmas holiday brought claims of joblessness down significantly last week, with initial claims for unemployment insurance down to 492,000 in the United States from nearly 600,000.
This change is the largest drop in claims in 16 years, said the Department of Labor. The unemployment rate, as of November 2008, was slated at 6.7 per cent.
4.5 million Americans are currently claiming unemployment benefits, the highest amount since the contractionary economy in the minor recession of 1980.
In Canada, non-metropolitan regions are seeing dramatic increases in E.I. benefit claims, particularly in areas of manufacturing and trades as layoffs rise. According to Statistics Canada, layoffs in the Trades, Transportation and Equipment Operators category are growing the fastest, shortly followed by the Manufacturing category of employment.
