Unemployment

In the last week we have talked to numerous companies that are furloughing employees, asking for 4 day work weeks, taking unpaid leaves of absence and generally doing the same "keep a job until business picks up practice".Visiting California its the same strategy the state is doing as well as other states to put of the inevitable job cuts and permanent layoffs. If we are in an "L" curve economic slowdown we are building an inventory of unemployment. If order rates don't return by the fall, if tax revenue doesn't show some sort of miraculous recovery and if there is not some actual stimulus to the economy we will see continued job loss. The recent Tatum survey supports that after a slow small improvement this spring businesses are now seeing slowing improvement if any. The market is saying it understands.