How The Improvement In Car Sales Predicted Today's Unemployment Numbers

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Unemployment numbers were just released and the percentage of people unemployed dropped from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent.

At the same time, car sales have hit their highest level since the crisis (if you leave out the boom that was cash for clunkers).

It makes sense.

When people don't have jobs, they don't buy things. When people have jobs, they buy things. When they're secure in their jobs, they buy big things. A car is a big thing, so an increase in car sales should correlate with an increase in long term employment, job security, and more people getting jobs.

Advertisement

Car sales are a good economic indicator, but this doesn't necessarily mean we're out of the woods yet. It could also just be a coincidence.