From Bloomberg:
Initial jobless claims fell back to trend in the April 17 week, coming in at a largely as-expected 456,000 and reversing two weeks of administrative delays that swelled claims to as high as 480,000 in the prior week (revised from 484,000). The 456,000 level compares with 445,000 in the March 20 period, offering a flat comparison at best to gauge monthly payroll change. Despite the distortions of the prior two weeks, the four-week average shows a similar comparison: at 460,250 vs. 454,000 at mid-March. Continuing claims for the April 10 week fell 40,000 to 4.646 million with the four-week average down slightly to 4.644 million.
While the drop is good, notice that on the chart we're still in a range of 450-475/480.
4 comments:
Kind of makes you wonder if we will go a long enough stretch without "other factors" to finally go down.
The 52 week moving average of nonseasonally adjusted jobless claims is now at 515,900....this moving average moved down 3,169 from last week.There is a strong correlation with this moving average and number of unemployed.
By my amateur calculation for every
1000 this moving average moves down there is 17,000 less unemployed.So we have possibly seen
54,000 less unemployed over the last week. I have adjusted for structural unemployment because when this moving average was moving up every 1000 cost 33,000 jobs....
Before the boxed (roughly 8 months), claims dropped from 650 to 500. In the box (roughly 5 months), claims dropped from 500 to 450.
So the trend still moving in the right direction. If that trend continues, we'll be okay and by the end of the year, well under 400K per week. I'm hoping the improved economic climate will lead to increased hired and the drop in initial claims will accelerate.
I read somewhere that there have been 45,000 jobs created in the auto industry over the last 9 months. A drop in the bucket but I believe this is a huge change from the massive lay-offs we've been experiencing.
If we are printing sub 400 seasonally adjusted jobless claims numbers by the end of the year
we could be seeing surprisingly good jobs figures....
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