- by New Deal democrat
With the end of the government shutdown, jobless claims are fully updated and back on their regular schedule.
And this week, there was more of the same.
Initial jobless claims were down -6,000 to a very low 216,000, and the four week average declined -1,000 to 223,750. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims rose 7,000 to 1.960 million:
Typically my graphs have been of the last two years, but since there was some ballyhooing about the low 216,000 number, I thought a comparison with the last four years puts it in more perspective, i.e., very good but not especially unusual.
As per usual, it is the YoY% changes which mean the most for my forecasting purposes. Just for example, a 260,000 number would have been great in the 1990s or 2000s, but would be very worrisome now. And in that regard, initial claims were unchanged YoY, the four week average was up 2.6%, and continuing claims were up 3.6%:
Higher comparisons YoY mean weakening, but unless they cross the 10% threshold, they don’t even raise a yellow flag. In other words, the economy is continuing to expand at a very low rate.
Because jobless claims lead the unemployment rate, which isn’t going to be reported at all for October, and November is almost over, they assume a greater importance for exploring that facet of the jobs market. Here’s what this week’s data adds to the update:
Initial claims are noisier but a more leading indicator, while initial plus continuing claims are less noisy but also much less leading. Either way, they are not forecasting any further deterioration in the unemployment rate over the next several months of monthly data - which we probably won’t have until January.
