Jobless claims jump to highest point since 1992
Staff and news service reports
Friday, June 8, 2001
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- New claims for state unemployment insurance shot up last week to the highest level in nearly nine years, suggesting that workers are having
increasing trouble holding onto their jobs in the slumping economy.
The number of Americans filing new applications for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000 for the workweek ended June 2, the Labor
Department said Thursday.
For the work week ended May 26, Minnesota recorded 6,393 new claims for unemployment insurance benefits, an increase of 808 from the previous week. The number of
initial filings was 3,400 more than the same week a year ago. State figures lag a week behind the national data and are not seasonally adjusted.
Many analysts had been expecting national claims to fall last week after three weeks of sharp increases. Last week's increase pushed jobless claims to their highest level since
Sept. 19, 1992, when they stood at 438,000.
The more stable four-week moving average of jobless claims, which smooths out week-to-week fluctuations, also rose last week to 413,500, the highest point since Oct. 3,
1992.
In another report, the Commerce Department said inventories at U.S. wholesalers rose in April for a second straight month, a sign that companies are making little progress
reducing stockpiles. Sales also increased.
Wholesale inventories rose 0.3 percent in April to $302.7 billion, reflecting increases in automobiles and computers, after rising 0.1 percent in March. Sales rose 0.3 percent
to $230.2 billion after a revised 1.5 percent drop in March that was the largest in more than seven years.
With business and consumer spending sluggish, companies are struggling to pare inventories. That helps explain why analysts are saying that a rise in economic growth may
be slow to materialize.
"New investment has been in a slump and consumers have cooled off considerably compared to last year," said Vincent Boberski, senior economist at Dain Rauscher Inc. in
Chicago. "It will be late summer at the earliest before inventories are at more realistic levels compared to sales."
The inventory-to-sales ratio, a measure of the amount of time goods sit unsold on shelves, was 1.31 months in April. That matched the ratio in March, which was the
highest since November.
In a third report, a bit more optimistic, the Federal Reserve Board said total consumer credit increased by a seasonally adjusted $13.9 billion in April, or a 10.7 percent
annual rate. Analysts had been expecting an increase of $9 billion.
-- Staff writer Melissa Levy, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
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