Economy in Brief: April 2012

March nonfarm payrolls grew a modest 120,000 (1.5% y/y) following a revised 240,000 February increase and a 275,000 January gain, which both were little-revised. The gain disappointed expectations for a 210,000 rise. From the [...]

March nonfarm payrolls grew a modest 120,000 (1.5% y/y) following a revised 240,000 February increase and a 275,000 January gain, which both were little-revised. The gain disappointed expectations for a 210,000 rise. From the [...]

German industrial output is off year-over-year for the first time in this up-cycle. Its sequential growth rates show that output is falling at an increasingly fast pace over shorter periods of time. While there have been negative [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that job cut announcements fell sharply during March to 37,880, near the recovery's low. Announcements were sharply lower in the transportation, consumer products, [...]

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell six thousand to 357,000 during the week ended March 31 from 363,000 in the prior week, reported earlier as 359,000. The latest figure was the lowest since April of 2008. The weekly number [...]

Service sector activity backpedaled last month. The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) fell to 56.0 in March versus an unrevised 57.3 during February and 56.8 in [...]

Employment growth is continuing at a moderate rate. That's indicated by the 209,000 increase in March private-sector payrolls reported by the payroll processor Automatic Data Processing (ADP) and economic consultants Macroeconomic [...]

Sales of light motor vehicles dipped m/m during March but remained near the four-year high. Unit vehicle sales fell 4.8% m/m to 14.37M (AR) during March according to Autodata Corporation. That sales rate was up 10.0% versus one year [...]