Economy in Brief: 2015

Last month's increase in payroll employment disappointed expectations and rose 173,000 (2.1% y/y), the weakest increase since March. A gain of 215,000 had been expected in the Action Economic Forecast Survey. The July increase was, [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that job cut announcements during August declined sharply to 41,186 (+2.9% y/y) and more-than-reversed July's unrevised surge to 105,496. Layoffs pulled back in the [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance rebounded to 282,000 during the week ended August 29 from 270,000 in the prior week, revised from 271,000. It was the highest level of claims since the first week of July. The four-week moving [...]

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Composite Index of Nonmanufacturing Sector Business eased to 59.0 during August from an unrevised 60.3 in July. These figures are the highest since the middle of 2005. Consensus expectations [...]

These foreign trade figures add to the preliminary numbers released last Friday by including trade in services and by country. The U.S. foreign trade deficit in goods and services during July eased to $41.9 billion from $45.2 billion [...]

The EMU PMI rose to 54.3 in August from 53.9 in July. The sequential PMI averages show a steady but very slow upward march in the EMU total PMI. The current August manufacturing PMI is still below the three-month average. [...]

New orders in the manufacturing sector improved 0.4% during July (-15.2% y/y) following a 2.2% June jump. A 0.7% rise was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Durable goods orders rose 2.2% (-20.2% y/y) following 4.1% [...]

Nonfarm productivity growth during Q2'15 was revised higher to 3.3% from 1.3% reported initially (SAAR). Revision to 2.3% growth was expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. Last quarter's gain followed two of quarters of [...]