601,000 New Jobless Claims Last Week

According to USA Today 601,000 workers filed for initial unemployment checks last week-->This is the lowest weekly rate in over 14 weeks. And once again it is an indicator that is "less bad than expected"

The amount of workers currently collecting unemployment benefits climbed to a record 6.35 million.

ADP Jobs Report for April, Not as Bad as Expected

This morning ADP issued their jobs report for April showing that 491,000 jobs were lost in April, 2009. Well this is still bad news, it's not as bad as people expected and it's signficantly fewer jobs lost than what have been lost every month since December 2008.

Click for a Bigger Chart...

As you can see in the chart above, the number of non-farm private jobs keeps declining (Green Bars & Left Hand Axis), but the rate of Change (Blue Line & Right Axis) is showing an uptick--and that uptick is why the stock market futures are trending up this morning. Analysts are hoping that the decline in job loss will continue and eventually turn into job gains. Will it happen? Only time will tell...

What do you think?

Alternatives to COBRA health insurance

For many people looking to keep health insurance after losing their job they first look at COBRA coverage offered by their employer. For many job seekers this just affordable (especially for people who were laid off well before the Obama Stimulus Package allows for COBRA subsidies.)

For myself, I've been using Assurant Health for my health insurance provider while I'm looking for work. So far I've been pleased, and recently I signed up for their affiliate marketing program---so this post is a little bit of an advertisement.



It never hurts to cross-shop and get quotes to see if COBRA has the best deal or some other insurance company does---so for a peace-of-mind, consider getting a quote from Assurant for your health insurance needs.

109 Cities have 10%++ Unemployment Rate

According to cnn.com there are now 109 cities in the United States with 10% unemployment rate or worse---This compares to 14 cities with 10% plus unemployment last year.

The cities with the most jobless tend to be from California, they include:

1. El Centro, CA --25.1%
2. Merced, CA--20.4%
3. Yuba City, CA--19.5%
4. Elkhart-Goshen, IN--18.8%
5. Visalia-Porterville, CA--17.7%
6. Modesto, CA--17.5%
7. Bend, OR--17.0%
8. Fresno, CA--17%
9. Redding, CA--16.8%
10. Hanford-Corcoran, CA--16.7%

Is the Jobs situation getting better in Pennsylvania?

According to recent reports the number of people collecting unemployment insurance in the state of Pennsylvania has dropped by 7,000 over the last week.

According to the Department of Labor, now ~364,000 Pennsylvanians are recieving benefits---while that number is around twice as bad as last year, the fact that it's down from the prior week is actually a good sign.