The recent positive economic news strengthens hope that the economy will continue to gain momentum during 2012. However, one potential fly in the (petroleum-based) ointment is rising oil (and hence gasoline) prices.
Today, the Federal Reserve released their Industrial Production data for January 2012. Motor vehicle assemblies in January 2012 were 10.17 million (SAAR) the highest since February of 2008.
In his State of the Union address, President Obama laid out an ambitious goal to train 2 million workers with the necessary skills to land a job. What are those skills in a 21st century economy? As we have written previously in this blog, the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) play a critical role in America’s global economic leadership and are vital to securing the highest quality jobs of the future, to decreasing the gender wage gap, and to ensuring America retains global economic leadership through innovation and technology. (Co-posted on DOC website:ht
Some good news on the employment front! The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their January 2012 report on the employment situation showing private sector employment increased 257,000 -- the largest increase since April 2011 (264,000). In addition, private sector employment gains were revised upward by 58,000 in November and 8,000 in December. Over the past 23 months, the private sector has added jobs every month for a total of nearly 3.7 million jobs.
One of the first available indicators about the U.S. economy in 2012 is the measure of retail sales of light vehicles and the news is good: January saw new sales just under 14.2 million (at an annual rate), up from 13.6 in December 2011. This is highest monthly level since May 2008 (even higher than the August 2009 spike, or as I like to call it “Mount Cash-for-Clunkers”).
Like many other economic indicators (such as GDP, Employment, and Personal Income) construction spending finished the year on an upward trend as we move into 2012. Total construction spending in December 2011 was $816.4 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, up 1.5 percent from the revised Nove
Personal income ended the year on a positive note-increasing 0.5 percent in December, its largest gain since February 2011.
Last week’s release of the December jobs data reveal industry employment trends for the whole year and afford us an opportunity to review the employment picture for 2011. Broad-based economic and job growth is key to reducing the ranks of the jobless, and certainly 2011 brought positive steps in that direction as joblessness finally began to decline, and the unemployment rate decreased to 8.5 percent.
