With the latest weekly initial jobless claims declining 6,000 to 472,000, the U.S. labor market has eked out some modest improvement. Still, jobless claims need to drop below 400,000 during the next two quarters to show broad economic gains.
Businesses large and small have complained for years about the cost of doing business. And it's not unusual for them to use the cost of hiring moderate-income workers to illustrate their points. Here's what they fail to mention.
The ADP private sector report showed a gain of 65,000 jobs, just under the 70,000 analysts expected. And the latest weekly unemployment claims showed a 10,000 drop, just under the estimate of 13,000. Numbers are going the right way, but slowly.
