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06/15 00:01
NBER Says U.S. Economic Slowdown Not Spreading Beyond Factories
By Carlos Torres
Washington, June 15 (Bloomberg) -- The current U.S. economic slowdown remains centered in manufacturing and there isn't any evidence that it is spreading, said an economic research group that acts as unofficial arbiter of expansions and recessions.
``The contraction appears to be limited to the sector covered by industrial production, manufacturing, and has not spread to other sectors,'' the National Bureau of Economic Research said in a report posted on its Internet site on June 4.
The latest assessment is a revision from a statement last month that suggested economic developments might be starting to signal a broad economic recession.
The NBER, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a committee whose members decide when recessions and expansions begin and end. The committee's six members gather whenever they think they have to decide that the economy has changed direction. The committee doesn't announce when it meets, so as to avoid arousing the public's concern.
In April, the committee began posting monthly notices on NBER's website to explain why it hasn't yet met. The notices are intended to deflect as many queries as possible, said Donna Zerwitz, director of public information at NBER.
The June notice reflected new statistics about the employment situation in May. ``In April, employment fell for the first time in the past six months and fell again, slightly, in May,'' said the notice, written by Robert Hall, a member of the NBER business cycle dating committee. ``The total decline in employment is only a small fraction of the decline that has occurred in recessions,'' the notice said.
Contrasting Assessments
That contrasts with the notice NBER had posted on May 15. Then, previous calculations of job losses for March and April -- since revised -- were ``a possible sign of the onset of a recession,'' according to the NBER notice.
The Labor Department earlier this month revised March payrolls to show a 59,000 increase instead of the 53,000 decline reported previously, and it revised figures for April to show the economy shed 182,000 jobs, fewer than the 223,000 first reported.
``The data continue to suggest that the only substantial declines in real activity in the U.S. economy are in manufacturing, the sector reflected in the industrial production index,'' the NBER notice added for the first time last week.
``Broader aggregates, such as employment and real retail sales, have stalled in recent months, but have not fallen significantly,'' the latest notice said.
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06/15 00:01
NBER Says U.S. Economic Slowdown Not Spreading Beyond Factories
By Carlos Torres
Washington, June 15 (Bloomberg) -- The current U.S. economic slowdown remains centered in manufacturing and there isn't any evidence that it is spreading, said an economic research group that acts as unofficial arbiter of expansions and recessions.
``The contraction appears to be limited to the sector covered by industrial production, manufacturing, and has not spread to other sectors,'' the National Bureau of Economic Research said in a report posted on its Internet site on June 4.
The latest assessment is a revision from a statement last month that suggested economic developments might be starting to signal a broad economic recession.
The NBER, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has a committee whose members decide when recessions and expansions begin and end. The committee's six members gather whenever they think they have to decide that the economy has changed direction. The committee doesn't announce when it meets, so as to avoid arousing the public's concern.
In April, the committee began posting monthly notices on NBER's website to explain why it hasn't yet met. The notices are intended to deflect as many queries as possible, said Donna Zerwitz, director of public information at NBER.
The June notice reflected new statistics about the employment situation in May. ``In April, employment fell for the first time in the past six months and fell again, slightly, in May,'' said the notice, written by Robert Hall, a member of the NBER business cycle dating committee. ``The total decline in employment is only a small fraction of the decline that has occurred in recessions,'' the notice said.
Contrasting Assessments
That contrasts with the notice NBER had posted on May 15. Then, previous calculations of job losses for March and April -- since revised -- were ``a possible sign of the onset of a recession,'' according to the NBER notice.
The Labor Department earlier this month revised March payrolls to show a 59,000 increase instead of the 53,000 decline reported previously, and it revised figures for April to show the economy shed 182,000 jobs, fewer than the 223,000 first reported.
``The data continue to suggest that the only substantial declines in real activity in the U.S. economy are in manufacturing, the sector reflected in the industrial production index,'' the NBER notice added for the first time last week.
``Broader aggregates, such as employment and real retail sales, have stalled in recent months, but have not fallen significantly,'' the latest notice said.
©2001 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Trademarks.
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