Saturday 6 June 2009

US job losses ease

The US employment picture brightened a little in May. Bloomberg reports:

The U.S. lost fewer jobs than forecast in May, reinforcing signs that the deepest recession in half a century is starting to abate.

Payrolls fell by 345,000, the least in eight months, after a revised 504,000 loss in April, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate increased to 9.4 percent, the highest since 1983, in part as more people joined the labor force to look for work...

Revisions added 82,000 to payroll figures previously reported for April and March, the Labor report said.

Treasury yields jumped on Friday but stocks could not hold on to gains.

Yields on benchmark 10-year U.S. notes jumped to 3.84 percent at 4:16 p.m. in New York from 3.71 percent late yesterday, and the dollar climbed to a four-week high against the yen, gaining 2.4 percent to 98.85. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index slipped 0.3 percent to 940.09 after rising as much as 1 percent earlier.

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