Economy in Brief: May 2014

The Markit manufacturing indices for April show increases in the UK and Ireland and a decline in the Netherlands. Over three months very strong gains are registered in Ireland and the manufacturing index is up by 3.4 points with the [...]

The value of construction put-in-place rose 0.2% in March (8.4% y/y). The severe winter weather was reflected in downward revisions to February and January, which both now show declines. January was changed from -0.2% to -0.4% and [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that job cut announcements rose to 40,298 (+5.7% y/y) during April. Layoffs increased m/m in the aerospace/defense, apparel, automotive, education, energy, financial, [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased to 344,000 last week (3.6% y/y) from an upwardly revised 330,000 in the week ended April 19. Expectations had been for 320,000 claims in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. The [...]

Factory sector activity is improving with the end of a rough winter and more hiring. The Composite Index of Manufacturing Sector Activity from the Institute for Supply Management improved to 54.9 during April from an unrevised 53.7 in [...]

Shop 'til you drop. That mentality raised personal consumption expenditures by 0.9% in March (4.0% y/y) following a 0.5% February increase, revised from 0.3%. It was the strongest gain since August 2009. A 0.6% rise had been expected [...]