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It’s a good thing the stock market is closed for Good Friday, because it may have been in free fall. After a disappointing week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March job numbers and they were a huge disappointment. The economy only added 120,000 new payroll jobs during the month.

It seems like adding 120,000 new jobs in one month would be a good thing, right? Especially considering the US economy added jobs for the fifteenth straight month. Also in March 2012 we have 1.9 million more jobs than we had in March 2011. We also saw initial claims for unemployment insurance fall in the week ended March 31 to their lowest level since April 2008 and the unemployment rate drop to 8.2 percent. So how can 120,000 new jobs be bad? It’s bad because we have very high expectations.

The economy was expected to add more than 200,000 jobs in March and that was the conservative estimate. Many so-called experts predicted we would add something like 250,000. So when you look at it that way, adding 80,000 less than 200,000 jobs looks like a complete disaster. But is it really?

In January we added 275,000 new jobs and in February we added another 240,000. One of the reasons economists were so optimistic about March’s jobs report was because they believe a lot of the hiring that has happened in 2012 is a result of over-firing. Because companies reacted too quickly when the recession hit, they’re now adding back people at a pace that’s just as fast.

If you remember, back in December we also saw mortgage rates hit their lowest rate in history. I wrote about this on my blog back then.

Wondering where the jobs were created in March? According to Yahoo! Finance:

“Manufacturing had a strong month, adding 37,000 positions. Gains were also seen in professional and business services (31,000), health care (26,000), and food services and drinking establishments (37,000). There was significant weakness in retail, which lost 34,000 positions in March. Average hourly wages bumped up a bit, but because the average number of hours worked fell in the month, average weekly wages fell as well.”

For critics of President Obama March continued a trend that some have called the “conservative recovery,” where the private sector added jobs while the public sector – jobs in federal, state and local government – cut them. This has happened for most of the past two years.

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/is-the-economy-really-getting-better-5805891.html

The issue of right-to-work has been raging for seven decades but in Indiana State there is hope that a decision might be taken. What exactly will it mean? The answer to this could lead to another range of discussions leaving behind uncertainty in its trail.

Starting from the 1940s laws have been passed in 22 states that disallow compulsory fee collection by unions for representing labour. The ban is supported largely by the Republicans. They argue that by doing so a business friendly atmosphere is created that is attractive to employers and this in turn leads to more jobs. Those opposing the law content that this causes low wages and low job quality.

Economists think that the state economies are shaped by multiple factors – health of national economy and trends in demographic shifts. Hence it is impossible to isolate the impact of right-to-work. Ozan Eren and Serken Ozbeklik, two noted economists said that it is difficult to distinguish “the effects of RTW laws from state characteristics, as well as other state policies that are unrelated with these laws”. The duo has conducted a significant study in 2011 on the RTW laws in the states of Idaho and Oklahoma.

It is availability of supplies that shape the decisions of big industries in choosing their locations. They also give priority to infrastructure, the pivotal markets and skilled working hands. For the works the effect of RTW is restriction because a mere 7% of the employees in the private sector belong to unions. Over the years growth in job has taken place in all the states irrespective of whether RTW exists or not.

Professor Gary Chaison of Clark University focusing on labour relations referring to RTW said, “The reason we don’t have clear views is because it’s always being debated at its extremes”. He concluded that when the issue boils down to jobs and this law, the causation remains unknown.

In Indiana the action on this measure will soon be completed. But the more comprehensive debate will continue.

Will RTW generate more jobs in the state?

As per a study that the Chamber of Commerce of Indiana had commissioned employment increased by 100% in those states with RTW from 1977 to 2008 but only by 57% in the states that did not have this law.

Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/the-issue-of-right-to-work-has-been-raging-for-seven-decades-5710160.html

AP – NOW, SPAIN: An auction of 10-year Spanish government bonds left the country paying interest rates of nearly 7 percent, a level economists consider unsustainable. Greece and Ireland received rescue loans from the European Union after their rates jumped above the same mark.

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AP – RETAIL SALES: Americans spent more on autos, electronics and building supplies in October, raising retail sales for a fifth straight month. Sales increased 0.5 percent from the previous month, a faster rate than economists expected.

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AP – MIXED JOB NEWS: U.S. employers added 103,000 jobs last month, twice as many as economists were expecting but not enough to bring the unemployment rate down from 9.1 percent. Stocks initially rose on the news but ended the day with slight losses.

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AP – Asian stock markets fell Monday as investors grew increasingly convinced that Greece would default on its debts, an event that economists say has the potential to spark a global downturn.

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AP – JOBS: Stock indexes fell sharply Friday, erasing most of the week’s gains, after the government reported that U.S. employers created the fewest number of jobs in nine months. The 18,000 net jobs in created in June were a fraction of what many economists expected.

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AP – JOBS: Payroll processor Automatic Data Processing said companies added 157,000 employees in June. The tally is more than double the number economists had forecast and far more than the 36,000 added the previous month.

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