Haver Analytics
Haver Analytics

Economy in Brief

    • Broad-based job growth follows earlier slowdown.
    • Construction employment remains notably firm.
    • Wage growth for “job changers” has weakened considerably.
    • Loan applications to purchase a house rose somewhat while applications to refinance fell.
    • Rates changed only marginally in latest week.
    • Loan size decreased modestly with refinancing size averaging somewhat lower.
  • There is still a great deal of growth pessimism about prospects in Europe. The August unemployment data, however, make it unquestionably clear that the labor market continues to perform quite well. The unemployment rate in August for the European Monetary Union (EMU) stood at 6.4%, same as its level in July. The unemployment rate continues to sit at its historic low.

    Still more unemployment progress that regress Scanning the unemployment rates for 12 of the longest standing European Monetary Union members as of August, unemployment rates month-to-month fell in six of them, while unemployment rates rose in only three of them. Labor market progress is still more widespread than labor market backtracking in the European Monetary Union. Unemployment rates in August fell in Finland, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece, and Portugal. Unemployment rates rose in August in Austria, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. EMU-wide the number unemployed continues to fall.

    We can also rank unemployment rates in their historic queue of data back to 1994. On this basis among the 12 monetary union members in the table, only two of them are above their historic medians. The medians in terms of ranked data occur at the 50th percentile mark. Luxembourg has an unemployment rate that ranks in its 85.5 percentile; Austria has an unemployment rate that ranks in its 60.5 percentile. All the rest of the country-level unemployment rates rank below their 50th percentile, with the highest ranking among the remaining countries being Finland where the unemployment rate stands at its 39th percentile, still well below its historic median. Germany, that has been in the news for unemployment slippage and economic weakening, has a 19.5% ranking in its unemployment rate – that is in the bottom 20-percentile of its historic queue of ranked data. The bottom line for the European Monetary Union is that the labor market is still quite solid and although there are concerns about weakness and perhaps concerns that the European Central Bank needs to cut interest rates more rapidly, the ECB is paying attention to inflation being over the top of its 2% target and at the same time it is looking at unemployment in the EMU that is tied for its all-time record low rate since the monetary union was formed.

    • Both light truck and passenger car sales rebound.
    • Domestic vehicle sales improve along with imports.
    • Imports' market share edges sideways.
    • Openings recover modestly after two months of decline, remaining well below 2022 high.
    • Hiring reverses most of earlier increase as two years of downward momentum continues.
    • Job separations approach four-year low.
    • The headline index was below the boom-bust 50 level for sixth consecutive month.
    • New orders and production indexes increased but remained below 50.
    • The employment index fell to further below 50.
    • August construction spending -0.1% m/m (+4.1% y/y); July and June revised down.
    • Residential private construction -0.3% m/m, led by a 1.5% decline in single-family building.
    • Nonresidential private construction -0.1% m/m, down for the second successive month.
    • Public sector construction +0.3% m/m, led by a 1.6% rebound in residential public building.
    • Gasoline prices remain at seven-month low.
    • Crude oil costs reverse most of earlier gain.
    • Natural gas prices rise further.