NOW FIRING

BANZAI7 NEWS--The Labor Department said that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 8,000, to a seasonally adjusted 480,000. Wall Street economists had expected a drop to 460,000. The rise is the fourth in the last five weeks. Most economists had hoped that claims would resume the downward trend that was evident in the fall and early winter.

The four-week average, which smoothes fluctuations, rose for the third consecutive week, to 468,750.
The figure is the highest in the last two months.

WB7: Instead of worrying about the statistical methodology of the Department of Labor, here is an effective short hand method for assessing the job situtation. For every headline you read about thousands of planned layoffs, how many headlines do you read about thousands of planned hires?

Of course you need to factor in the possibility of a data skew, such as Bank of America's plan to hire thousands of brokers. This could be inversely indicative the job situation for the rest of America.

Bank of America should be hiring thousands of lawyers to fight Mario Cuomo's latest fraud action.