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US Unemployment Rising, Retail Sales Falling, Say ReportsVOA News
February 12, 2004
Two new government reports show unemployment claims rising and retail sales falling.
Thursday's reports surprised economists who had expected them to point toward an expanding economy.
Retail sales were down 0.3 percent in January.
Experts say auto sales, which fluctuate widely from month to month, brought down the overall figures that otherwise would have shown a gain.
Economists say retail sales are a key measure of consumer demand, which is important because it drives most economic activity in the United States.
Rising consumer demand has boosted the U.S. economy out of a slump and into a period of strong growth in recent months.
But economic growth has not yet created new jobs in the troubled U.S. labor market.
Thursday, the government reported the number of Americans asking for unemployment compensation grew slightly (by 6,000 to 363,000) last week.
The U.S. Labor Department says bad weather in the eastern part of the country probably forced construction companies to lay off workers for a while.
U.S. unemployment, which is reported separately, now stands at 5.6 percent.
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the jobless rate would probably decline to as low as 5.25 percent this year.
Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.
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