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Job market stays strong
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March 12, 1998: 9:25 a.m. ET
Jobless claims fall 7,000, pushing overall claims below 300,000 mark
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The U.S. labor market continued to pull people off the unemployment line and put them into the workplace last week, figures released by the U.S. Labor Department Thursday indicated.
The number of first-time applicants for unemployment benefits fell 7,000 to 298,000 for the week ended March 7, down from a revised figure of 305,000 the week before.
While U.S. employers keep hiring, Erich Heinemann, an economist at Heinemann Economic Research, predicted that trend wouldn't last.
"The underlying trend in the growth rate is down," he said. "It's a gentle slope, but consumer demand has been gradually weakening for some time."
Heinemann's gloomy predictions were based on what he saw as an overly optimistic initial estimate for the fourth-quarter gross domestic product combined with a surge in hiring. This, he said, points to lower productivity and profit pressures which will create a hiring slowdown.
The four-week moving average of jobless claims, which is more closely watched since it shows a larger picture of U.S. labor pressures, also fell back, decreasing 1,000 to 308,000.
February retail sales figures released by the U.S. Commerce Department Thursday showed retail purchases increased 0.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted $218.1 million, in line with expectations.
Excluding auto sales, which are often volatile and can skew the figure wildly, retail sales increased 0.6 percent, also as predicted by economists.
Purchases of automobiles, which make up a fourth of retail sales, edged up a mere 0.1 percent in February to $52.95 billion after falling 0.2 percent in January.
The increase in overall sales showed healthy spending trends by consumers in the United States -- good news for the nation's economy since consumer spending makes up two-thirds of the United States' GDP.
Breaking down the retail figures, sales of durable goods -- those goods expected to last three years or more -- increased 0.5 percent from January and were 3.3 percent above February 1997 sales. Non-durable goods sales increased by the same amount in February.
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