Americans applied for fewer unemployment benefits at the end of 2019, the Labor Department announced Thursday. The number dropped by 2,000 to 222,000 in the seven days up until December 28, although the four-week average ticked up by 4,750 to 233,250.
The report beat expectations that had predicted 225,000 new claims, according to Reuters. The result marks the third consecutive weekly decline.
“I think we’re definitely going to see slightly smaller growth month by month than what we saw in 2019 and that’s consistent with economists expectations’ of the macroeconomy weakening slightly,” in the labor market, Beth Akers, Manhattan Institute senior fellow, told Cheddar.
She will be keeping an eye on manufacturing trends and changes in policy regarding trade for indications about how job numbers will grow (or shrink) in 2020.
“If you’re looking to something to be concerned about, you can look at the four-week moving average, which is up from what it’s been over the course of the year,” Akers said. “But, by and large, these are really strong, positive numbers for the labor market.”
Peter Zalzal, associate vice president for clean air strategies at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, joined Cheddar to discuss the Biden Administration's unveiling of stricter fuel-efficiency standards for new automobiles. "The administration estimated that these rules will reduce about 2.5 billion tons of climate pollution by 2050, and using less fuel also means that we have to go to the gas pump less often. And so it means we save money, thousands of dollars in avoided fuel costs each year for consumers," he noted.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is taking a 9.2% stake in Twitter to become the social media platform's largest shareholder. Musk purchased approximately 73.5 million shares, according to a regulatory filing Monday.
The relatively robust March jobs report showed that despite the low unemployment rate, Black, Hispanic, and women job seekers are still having difficulty finding work. William M. Rodgers III, the vice president and director of the Institute for Economic Equity at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis noted that participation rates in the labor force ticked up for minorities, adding to other positive signs of growth. He also spoke to Cheddar News to discuss further the jobs figures, the state of the labor market, and rising inflation.
April Fools’ Day is full of eye-rolling marketing ideas that sometimes make us chuckle, but mostly make us groan. Here’s a roundup of some of the notable products we won’t be seeing on shelves anytime soon.
Amit Bendov, the CEO and co-founder of Gong, a platform utilizing artificial intelligence to help sales and customer support teams, joined Cheddar News to talk about the tech company's innovative use of AI. Bendov pointed to an example of how the platform aided a client in selling point-of-sales software to restaurants. "Gong came up with a recommendation that when they called to introduce yourself to a new company, you should talk about the iPad before the application. That small change increased sales by 12 percent. It's a very simple change," he said. "The funny thing, Gong doesn't even know what an iPad is, what the application [is], or anything about their business. It just observed. But this is what the top 5 percent of people are doing that nobody else does. It's a very simple change to implement. Very hard to detect."
