Initial Jobless Claims up. Productivity down.

Initial Jobless Claims (week ended 10/31/2015)
– New Claims seasonally adjusted  276,000. Previous was 260,000
– New Claims not seasonally adjusted totaled 258,663 an increase of 13,303 previous
– 4-week Moving Average  262,750.  Previous was 259,250

Challenger Job-Cut Report (October 2015)

– Announced Layoffs  50,504. Previous was 58,877.

About a quarter of these announced layoff are in the oil industry.

 
Productivity and Costs (3rdQ2015)

– Nonfarm productivity quarter/quarter seasonally adjusted, annualized  +1.6%. Previous was +3.5%
– Unit labor costs quarter/quarter seasonally adjusted, annualized  +1.4%. Previous was -1.8%.

Productivity is GDP/hour worked.  Productivity growth continues to be disappointingly low.

 

Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index (week ended 11/1/2015)

– Index  41.1.  Previous was 42.8.

This is another survey index which tries to estimate what consumer spending will be in the next 3 months.