News
WSJ | Spanish Unemployment Soars
Spain's jobless claims shot up 4% in January from December to 4.59 million, a sign that the euro zone's fourth-largest economy is still shedding jobs at a record rate.
NY Times | American Airlines Seeks 13,000 Job Cuts
It plans to terminate its pension plans. It wants to cut back health benefits for current employees and retirees. Over all, it said, it seeks to cut employee costs by 20 percent.
CNN Money | Challenger: Job cuts increased in January
Planned job cuts for the month of January totaled 53,486, according to a report from outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. That's a 28% increase from December and the highest total since the 116,000 cuts announced in September.
Politico | House backs federal pay freeze
The House voted 309-117 to extend the salary freeze for federal workers - as well as for members of Congress - for one more year. The standard salary for a member of Congress has stayed at $174,000 since 2009.
Market Watch | January private-sector jobs rise 170,000: ADP
Employment in the nation’s private sector is improving at a moderate pace, with two years of job gains now on the books, according to a monthly labor-market report released Wednesday by payrolls-processor Automatic Data Processing Inc.
Blogs
Neighborhood Effects | Twenty states face bill for Unemployment Benefits
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a new analysis highlighting the $35 billion bill that 20 states owe to the federal government for covering benefit extensions. The report points to one of the design problems with the current program.
WSJ | Broader Unemployment Rates, by State
Unemployment nationwide averaged 8.9% in 2011, but the rate still hovered in the double-digits in states such as Nevada and California.
Zero Hedge | This Is Europe's Scariest Chart
Surging Greek and Portuguese bond yields? Plunging Italian bank stocks? The projected GDP of the Eurozone? In the grand scheme of things, while certainly disturbing, none of these data points actually tell us much about the secular shift within European society
WSJ | Chicago Fed Blames Baby Boomers for Big Part of Labor Force Drop
The long-running decline in the proportion of Americans still tied to the labor force relative to the nation’s total population has been vexing economists and government officials for some time.
