Economy in Brief: May 2012

Euro-Area Retail sales are up by 0.3% in March and are accelerating over three months compared to six months. Motor vehicle registrations rebounded in March after a plunge February that followed a disaster in January. Their growth [...]

Nonfarm payrolls grew a disappointing 115,000 (1.4% y/y) last month. The rise followed a 154,000 March increase and a 259,000 February gain which both were revised up from 120,000 and 240,000, respectively. The latest increase was [...]

The outplacement firm of Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that job cut announcements rose slightly during April to 40,559. However, they remained near the recovery's low. Announcements remained low in the apparel, construction, [...]

The Composite Index for the service and construction sectors from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) fell to 53.5 in April versus an unrevised 56.0 during March. Declines during the last two months pulled the figure to its [...]

The job market picture brightened significantly last week. Initial unemployment insurance claims fell sharply to 365,000 from an upwardly revised 392,000 during the prior week, earlier reported as 388,000. The latest figure reversed [...]

Last quarter, labor productivity posted an outright decline of 0.5% (AR) after having weakened considerably during all of last year. The Q1 figure matched expectations. The decline followed last year's notable deterioration in growth [...]

The EMU regions continue to give back ground as the April indices have settled into their final values with declines across the board in April with the minor exception of France. The EMU index may not seem to be so low as it is only [...]

Orders in the manufacturing sector dropped an expected 1.5% (+3.3% y/y) during March and reversed a little-revised 1.1% February jump. The decline reflected a 4.0% slump in orders for durable goods. That was little-changed from the [...]