Posts By Lindsay Young

Though the unemployment rate continues to rise, other indicators seem to be leveling off.
 
And the Wall Street Journal’s regular survey of economists has some relatively good news this week. The respondents say it’s possible the recession could be over by this fall.
 
But, according to WSJ: "The depth of the downturn means it will take years to eat up the slack created by the recession. Nearly half of the economists said it will take three to four years to close the output gap, while more than a quarter say it will take five to six years."

(Here’s <a target="_blank" ...

The employment numbers out today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are not great – we have now hit 8.5% unemployment nationally. Since December 2007, the U.S. has lost 5.1 million jobs, with two-thirds of that decrease happening in the past five months. Job losses were widespread.
 
Wholesale trade saw a decline of 31,000 in March, with nearly all the decline in durable goods.
 
How did manufacturing and construction fare?
 
According to data found here, manufacturing employment in March fell by 161,000, with widespread losses among component industries. Factory employment fell by 1 million over the past six months. The largest decreases in March were in fabricated …

Housing starts went up unexpectedly in February (+22.2% from January), but were still down 47.3% from February 2008. And while to some this might trigger some hope that we’re reaching the bottom, as the Chicago Tribune and other papers around the country have noted, most of the gain came from the multifamily sector, which includes apartments and condominiums. Starts in that sector rose more than 80%; single-family homes only gained 1.1%. On the bright side, that 1.1% is an improvement over the double-digit drops we have been seeing the past several months.
 
Economists are mixed as to whether the slight …