Full text of U.S. Financial Data : March 9, 2000

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March 9, 2000

USFinancialData
THE WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS:
■ Initial claims for the state unemployment insurance benefits
averaged 277,250 for the four weeks ending March 4. During
the same four-week period a year earlier, unemployment claims
averaged 293,500.
■ Fourth-quarter growth of output per hour in the nonfarm business
sector was revised upward 1.4 percentage points to 6.4 percent.
With growth of hourly compensation revised from 4 percent to
3.7 percent, unit labor costs are now estimated to have declined
at a 2.5-percent annual rate during the fourth quarter, rather
than at the 1-percent rate previously estimated. Nonfarm labor
productivity increased 3.6 percent in 1999, the largest gain
in seven years, while unit labor costs rose 0.7 percent.
■ Following annual rates of increases of 12.1 percent in November
and 9.4 percent in December, the value of consumer credit
outstanding increased $17 billion, or at a 15.6 percent rate,
in January. January’s increase was the largest monthly gain
since November 1995.
■ The nominal value of new orders to factories for manufactured
durable and nondurable goods fell 1.1 percent in January, the
first decline in three months. The value of manufacturers’ unfilled
orders, though, increased 0.7 percent in January, the seventh
consecutive monthly increase.
■ Nonagricultural payroll employment rose 43,000 in February, the
smallest increase in nine months, while the civilian unemployment
rate rose 0.1 percentage point to 4.1 percent.
All data are seasonally adjusted unless otherwise indicated.
U.S. Financial Data is published weekly by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of
St. Louis. For more information on data, please call (314) 444-8590. To be added to the mailing
list, please call (314) 444-8808 or (314) 444-8809.
Information in this publication is also included in the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) electronic
bulletin board at (314) 621-1824 or internet World Wide Web server at www.stls.frb.org/fred.