A Change in the Weather

Buoyed up by the approach of Easter and an easing of the nation's worst weather in years, retail sales are riding high across the U.S. Department store sales for the last week reported were 22% above the corresponding week a year ago. Adjusted to fit the pre-Easter sales pattern (Easter this year is three weeks later than last), the figure is still 8% above the comparable 1959 week.

"I am never very comfortable having recourse to weather as an explanation" said Raymond Saulnier, chief of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. "So I had our men run a comparison of the winter with previous winters. The results showed that March weather was 'stinking.' It had a significant impact."

Better weather also got credit for a step up in auto sales, which spurted in the final third of March. Besides a solid gain by Ford and Chevrolet (TIME, April 11 Dodge reported that March was its best month since 1952 and that sales for the model year so far are up 129%. Plymouth's 37% sales hike over last year made its first quarter the best since 1957, and Rambler set an alltime March and first-quarter record with a 37% sales gain over last year's record first quarter. Pontiac reported its best first quarter in four years, with sales running 5% above last year. Nevertheless, the industry cut back production because of the huge stocks of cars on hand.

The figures on jobs were not so cheering. The Department of Labor announced this week that unemployment rose to about 4,200,000 in March (slightly above 5% of the working force), and employ ment slipped back slightly to just above 64 million, both against seasonal trends. One reason: the monthly employment sample was taken during a week when a blizzard hit several parts of the country preventing many seasonal workers in agriculture, construction and trade from being rehired. The Labor Department expects employment, which began to turn up in late March and early April, to rebound sharply this month. The A.F.L.-C.I.O., meanwhile, predicted that the U.S. working force in 1960 will win wage hikes "at least equal to and most likely somewhat larger than in 1959."

Taking all the current economic figures on balance, the New York Federal Reserve Bank cannily reported that the economy "moved sideward" during March. Said the bank: "Hesitations of this type are not, of course, at all unusual during a course of sustained business expansion. But they always create uncertainty as to whether there has been a pause for breath which will be followed by renewed progress, or whether an advance warning of business recession has been posted."

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