Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
For the benefit week ending on December 24, 2011, some 20,098 North Carolinians filed initial claims for state unemployment insurance benefits, and 127,019 individuals applied for state-funded continuing benefits. Compared to the prior week, there were more initial and continuing claims. These figures come from data released by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Averaging new and continuing claims over a four-week period — a process that helps adjust for seasonal fluctuations and better illustrates trends — shows that an average of 14,777 initial claims were filed over the previous four weeks, along with an average of 118,495 continuing claims. Compared to the previous four-week period, the average number of initial claims was lower, and the average number of continuing claims was higher.
One year ago, the four-week average for initial claims stood at 16,890 and the four-week average of continuing claims equaled 130,453.
In recent weeks covered employment has increased slightly and has returned to the 3.73 million level recorded a year ago. Nevertheless, there are still fewer covered workers than there were in January 2008, which means that payrolls are smaller today than they were almost three years ago.
The graph shows the changes in unemployment insurance claims measured as a share of covered employment in North Carolina since the recession’s start in December 2007.
Both new and continuing claims appear to have peaked for this cycle, and the four-week averages of new and continuing claims have fallen considerably. Yet continuing claims remain at an elevated level, which suggests that unemployed individuals are finding it difficult to find new positions.
From the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the November version of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) …
The fact that we have had a job-seekers ratio above 4-to-1 for 152 weeks underscores the crucial need for continuing extended unemployment insurance benefits, which now last a maximum of 99 weeks. There are currently 5.6 million people in this country who have been unemployed for more than half a year, up from 1.2 million in 2007. As the job-seekers ratio shows, what’s happening is not that millions of workers have become lazy, unskilled, or unproductive; it is that there are not enough jobs available. With the Congressional Budget Office projecting an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent at the end of this year, continuing federally funded unemployment insurance benefit extensions through 2012 would extend a lifeline to the families of millions of long-term unemployed workers, and generate spending that would support well over half a million jobs.
Economic policy reports, blog postings, and media stories of interest:
The N.C Budget and Tax Center reports that state investigators substantiated 1,651 allegations of “wage theft” involving $4.7 million in earned wages that were not paid to employees during fiscal year 2011. From the analysis …
The concentration of wage‐theft complaints by industry in North Carolina aligns with national trends. Wage theft complaints are more likely to occur in low‐wage industries. Importantly, those industries with the highest incidence of wage theft – retail and home health‐care services –are also among the industries with the strongest job growth in North Carolina.
…
As North Carolina’s economic recovery and projected job growth remain concentrated in industries and occupations where the most complaints of wage violations are made, the need for monitoring and enforcement of wage and hour laws will grow.
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