Brace Yourself

Several recent publications are getting a lot of play in the news the last couple of days, and none is overly optimistic. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation Summary for February 2009 today, and reported a higher unemployment rate of 8.1% (the highest in 25 years), and a loss of 651,000 non-farm jobs last month.

Another BLS report released yesterday, shows unit labor costs for 4Q 2008 up, and almost every other measure (productivity, hours, and output) down. Some areas show the largest decreases in a quarter since the Productivity and Costs series began.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released the second Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions (or "Beige Book") for this year. The Beige Book is a summary of anecdotal economic information gathered in each of the Fed's 12 districts, then reported by district and sector. This report is unique in federal government, in that it looks at every aspect of the nation's economy, and uses it to draw very broad conclusions about the economic outlook. The verdict? For the reporting period of January through late February,

The deterioration was broad based, with only a few sectors such as basic food production and pharmaceuticals appearing to be exceptions.

That's right -- at least one sector is seeing a silver lining to this economy! An article in AdAge claims that prescriptions for antidepressants and sleep aids are both on the rise, despite pharma companies spending less on ads. Apparently, the drugs are selling themselves these days.