Economy in Brief: 2012

The job market gave further indication of moderate improvement. Nonfarm payrolls grew 200,000 (1.3% y/y) in December and the prior two months were little-revised. Consensus expectations had been for a 150,000 gain in December [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that job cut announcements during December slipped to a six-month low of 41,785 from November's 42,474. The latest figure was the lowest since June. The low level of [...]

In a testimony to still sluggish economic growth, service sector activity improved just slightly last month. The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) ticked up to 52.6 [...]

The labor market realized another improvement last week. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 372,000 last week from 387,000 the week earlier (revised from 381,000). The latest reading was the lowest since May, 2008. [...]

Improvement in the job market continued to pick up steam last month. According to the payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and economic consultants Macroeconomic Advisers, private nonfarm payrolls grew 325,000 (0.3% m/m) [...]

Last year was a good one for auto makers. December's unit sales of light vehicles of 13.56M (AR) rose 8.4% from one year earlier. That pulled full year sales to 12.78M, up 10.4% after 2010's 11.6% gain. Last month's sales were nearly [...]

Manufacturing orders jumped an expected 1.8% (11.6% y/y) during November following a little-revised 0.2% October slip. Higher orders for durable goods powered the increase with a 3.7% rise, roughly unchanged from the advance report. [...]

Shoppers felt the urge to spend (a lot) during the holiday season. Chain store sales jumped another 1.2% last week (5.3% y/y) to a record high. During the last ten years there has been a 66% correlation between the y/y change in chain [...]