The latest jobs data from the US is the worst for six years: 38,000 jobs created in May compared to the 160,000 expected. The market slumped on the news of the bad figures, but Yellen played them down. She said “too much attention” should not be paid to one jobs report and that she was still in favour of raising rates.
Marcus Nunes | The headline numbers for February: 242 thousand jobs and 4.9% unemployment rate. Let´s give these numbers some “structure”. The unemployment rate is the result of two forces that reflect economic decisions by individuals and firms. The first is the employment population ratio (EPOP). The second the labor force participation ratio (LFPR). The unemployment rate is equal to 1-(EPOP/LFPR).
The most obvious falsehood in Spain’s Q4 GDP figure is the data related to Survey of the Active Population. According to Roberto Centeno,”job creation in the private sector slumped to 31,200 people from the 182,000 recorded in the previous quarter, with supposedly similar GDP growth. If we make a comparison with Q4 2014 to eliminate the seasonality effect, 63,100 new private sector jobs were created with GDP growth of 0.7%.”
Fernando Barciela | Spanish unemployment fell again in November, reversing a three-month upward trend. Last month, 27,000 fewer people were registered as jobless than in October, taking the total number of unemployed to 4.15 million. This is good news, given that at the peak of Spain’s economic crisis, the jobless rate reached a record 26.9%. There has also been a rise in Social Security affiliations, which increased from 16.3% in 2013 to 17.2% in October 2015.
James Alexander via Historinhas | Every time I see the chart for US unemployment these days it looks like it is time for the trend to turn.
Since the Eurozone’s recovery started two years ago, the number of people in work has grown in all EU member states individually during the last seven quarters. In Q2’15 it expanded by 1.9% on a y-o-y basis.
Next week’s Federal Reserve meeting ( September 16th and 17th) has investors on tenterhooks. Some Fed members have recently pointed to a possible rate hike in September, raising concerns not only in the markets but also amongst IMF and World Bank leaders.
The German economy continues sound but turbulence coming from emerging markets could impact sharply on Germany’s export-led growth.
MADRID | July 24, 2015 | By Fernando Barciela | Economist, businessman and former minister at several Spanish socialist cabinets between 1982 and 1993, Carlos Solchaga praises the big steps taken by the Spanish labour reform –the main of which he claims were made in the years ‘93 and ‘94, while he was a member of the government. This is the first part of our conversation.
MADRID | July 5, 2014 | By Fernando González Urbaneja | It’s been one of the costs of the crisis: an internal wage devaluation. Over the last year and half of the economic recovery, with the country’ GDP growing more than one percentage point above the EU average, Spain managed to create almost a million new jobs, almost one-third of what was lost.