Economy in Brief: August 2011

UK consumers are suffering a relapse. After seeing confidence jump in May, June, July and August have brought on a relapse. Is it the knock-on effects of the European debt crisis or an overdose of the policies of the Conservative [...]

Manufacturing orders jumped 2.4% during July after a revised 0.4% June slip. Consensus expectations were for a 1.8% gain. For durable goods only orders rose 4.1% which roughly equaled the gain in the advance report. Nondurable goods [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that job cut announcements during August fell back following their July surge. The decline to 51,114 nevertheless left them up 47.0% from last August. The uptick in [...]

Employment growth continued to sputter last month according to the payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and economic consultants Macroeconomic Advisers. The August gain in private nonfarm payrolls of 91,000 followed a [...]

Intuit compiles data covering small business employment and, as of this month, the figures are still improving. For August, its employment index rose 0.2% for the ninth consecutive month, but figures before August were revised down [...]

The European Commission's Economic Sentiment Indicator for the Euro Area fell below its long time average of 100 to 98.3 in August, the first time it has been below 100 since June of 2010. As can be seen in the first chart, the [...]

The economic environment is OK for now, but a recession is on the way. That's the reading of the environment reflected in the Conference Board's August Index of Consumer Confidence. It fell by one-quarter m/m to 44.5 after a moderate, [...]

During the last several weeks, the early-summer decline in petroleum costs leveled off. The pump price for regular gasoline rose a nickel last week to $3.63 per gallon, its highest in a month. Nevertheless, prices remained down [...]