Unemployment United States

Out-of-work Americans will be able to get vouchers to buy their own job-training services under a bill that President Clinton signed Friday. "Almost every American has more than enough sense to decide what is in his or her best interests given a little helpful advice on the available alternatives," Clinton said before signing the Workforce Investment Act.

Manufacturing executives predict a modest slowdown in orders and hiring over the next three months, partly due to Asia's ongoing economic troubles, according to a Dun & Bradstreet Corp. survey released Thursday. The findings differ from a separate Dun & Bradstreet survey of construction executives, who believe employment levels will improve significantly in the coming months. The Murray Hill, N.J.-based financial information company found in its July survey of 1,000 U.S.

Amid growing signs that the Asian economic crisis is cooling off America's long-running business boom, job cutting is making a big comeback, particularly at semiconductor companies and other high-tech concerns. Analysts say the Asia-related layoffs and corporate retrenchments, on top of the short-term impact of the recently settled strike at General Motors, will lead to weaker numbers today when the federal government reports on July's employment picture. Many predict that the U.S.

U.S. job cuts in the last four months as a result of mergers and acquisitions more than doubled those of the same period a year ago, according to employment company Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Of the 182,077 payroll reductions announced between April and July, 24,350, or 13.4%, were a result of mergers, the New York-based company said. During the same period last year, 11,190 job cuts, or 11.2%, were a result of mergers. The overall number of job cuts almost doubled as well.

Jobless claims jumped by 13,000 for the week ended June 13, caused in part by strikes at General Motors Corp., the Labor Department said. The number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose to 327,000 in the week that saw more than 50,000 people affected by the United Auto Workers strikes at GM. In the previous week, 314,000 applied for benefits.

The nation's business expansion produced nearly 300,000 new jobs in May, enough to hold the unemployment rate at a surprising 4.3%, the lowest level in a generation, the Labor Department reported Friday. The news of a surge in jobs helped power a strong stock market rally, with the Dow Jones industrial average gaining 167.15 points to close the day at 9,037.71. The index of blue chip companies closed above the 9,000 level for the first time in two weeks. Many economists had believed that the 4.

The number of U.S. workers filing for state unemployment benefits rose last week to its highest level since July 1997, the government said, reflecting the effect of a three-week strike against General Motors Corp. First-time jobless claims rose by a larger-than-expected 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 364,000 for the week ended June 20, the Labor Department said.

The number of Americans filing for state unemployment benefits rose last week, a move that left the number of new claims about where it has been since January. First-time jobless claims rose by 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 317,000 for the week ended last Friday, the Labor Department said. The increase more than reversed a revised drop of 24,000 new claims during the week before last, to 288,000. The total number of people on the unemployment rolls rose by 74,000 to about 2.

The nation's seemingly unstoppable job-creation machine sputtered slightly last month, the government reported Friday, but economists were divided over whether it signaled the start of the long-expected slowdown in the economy's growth rate. The Labor Department's monthly survey showed that industry payrolls shrank by a modest 36,000 jobs in March, after 25 consecutive months of job growth. That nudged the overall unemployment rate to 4.7% of the work force, up from 4.6% in February.

Construction starts on new homes slipped in March by a smaller-than-expected 2.8% to 1.590 million units at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, the Commerce Department said. The decline, the first in four months, put starts at their second-highest level since January 1989. Analysts had expected a larger decline for March because construction activity in January and February had been bolstered by unseasonably warm temperatures.