by Calculated Risk on 11/04/2011 09:30:00 PM

A couple of forecast upgrades:

Merrill Lynch: "An improvement in domestic demand and inventory rebuilding has led us to revise Q4 GDP growth to 3.0% from 2.3%"

Goldman Sachs: "We have revised up our Q4 GDP forecast to 2.0% (quarter-over-quarter annualized) from 1.0% previously. The revision primarily reflects an upgrade to consumer spending, which showed solid momentum at the end of the third quarter."

It is important to remember that this is still sluggish growth, and not enough to reduce the unemployment rate. And there are significant downside risks from the European financial crisis and U.S. fiscal tightening in 2012.

Here are the earlier employment posts (with graphs):
• October Employment Report: 80,000 Jobs, 9.0% Unemployment Rate
• Employment Summary, Part Time Workers, and Unemployed over 26 Weeks
• Seasonal Retail Hiring, Duration of Unemployment, Unemployment by Education and Diffusion Indexes
• NEW Employment graph gallery (fast, no scripting)