Americans filed the fewest claims for jobless benefits since 2008, surprising forecasters and signaling that an improving labor market will give the world’s largest economy a boost.
Claims dropped by 13,000 in the week ended Feb. 11 to 348,000, less than the most optimistic estimate of 45 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Other reports on Thursday showed consumer confidence improved, housing starts climbed and manufacturing in the Philadelphia area accelerated.
Stocks rose on evidence that the US expansion is gaining strength in the face of the European crisis and a slowdown in China. The decline in claims for jobless benefits coincides with a pickup in hiring that pushed the unemployment rate down to a three-year low last month, giving consumers the confidence to increase spending.
Photo: Reuters
“The economy’s wheels just keep spinning faster and faster,” New York-based Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd chief financial economist Chris Rupkey said.
He also said payrolls were likely to rise by more than 200,000 for a third straight month this month.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 1.1 percent to 1,358.05 at the close in New York. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note increased to 1.98 percent from 1.93 percent late on Wednesday.
Builders broke ground on more homes than forecast last month, helped by warmer weather and adding to signs the residential real-estate market is stabilizing, data from the Commerce Department showed on Thursday.
Housing starts rose 1.5 percent to a 699,000 annual rate from a 689,000 pace in December that was stronger than previously reported. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey called for a rise to 675,000. Building permits, a proxy for future construction, also climbed.
Manufacturing in the Philadelphia region expanded this month at the fastest pace in four months as orders and sales picked up.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s general economic index increased to 10.2 from 7.3 last month. Economists forecast the gauge would rise to 9. Readings greater than zero signal expansion in the area covering eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware.
The report follows figures from the central bank on Wednesday that showed manufacturers across the country boosted production last month, capping the biggest back-to-back increases in more than two years.
“For at least the last three weeks, we’ve felt very good about the demand,” Memphis-based International Paper Co senior vice president of consumer packaging Thomas Kadien said on a Feb. 2 conference call. “From a North American perspective, the softness is behind us, and we feel much better about the first quarter.”
An improving job market is boosting consumer confidence, adding an impetus to the household spending that makes up 70 percent of the economy.
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index rose to minus-39.8 in the period ended Feb. 12, the highest in a year, from minus-41.7 the previous week. It marked just the third time since April 2008 that the gauge has climbed above minus-40, a reading consistent with recessions or their aftermath.
Claims for unemployment insurance have fallen for three straight weeks, adding to evidence the labor market is recovering from the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009. The jobless rate last month unexpectedly fell to 8.3 percent, and employers added 243,000 workers to payrolls, the most in nine months.
“The unemployment rate is 8.3 percent right now last month and it could fall to 8.1 percent in the February report,” which will be released on March 9, Rupkey said.
Wholesale prices rose less than forecast last month as food and energy costs dropped, a sign inflation pressures may remain subdued, another report from the Labor Department showed on Thursday.
The producer price index rose 0.1 percent following a 0.1 percent decrease the prior month. Economists projected a 0.4 percent gain, according to the survey median. The core measure excluding volatile food and energy rose 0.4 percent, more than projected, led by a surge in drug prices.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day