- by New Deal democrat
There was no new official data reported this morning, including the normal monthly report on housing permits, starts, and construction. Yesterday the Department of Labor did partially update several weeks of jobless claims data, which helps us estimate what might happen with the unemployment rate when the September jobs report is finally released tomorrow.
Unadjusted initial claims were reported as 237,750 for the last week (a grand total of 38 claims higher than my calculation, probably reflecting the inclusion of the Virgin Islands. This translated to 232,000 as adjusted. Unadjustted continuing claims for the last two weeks were reported as 1,674,170 and 1,708,565 respectively, both of which were significantly lower than the number I was able to tabulate from the data reported by the States. This translated into 1.947 and 1.957 claims as adjusted, very close to my estimates.
In any event, although several weeks of data remain missing for now, here is what the updated graph of each looks like:
Continuing claims (right scale) are near the top of their 2025 range, while initial claims (left scale) are in roughly the middle of theirs.
Remember that initial claims are the more leading but noisier indicator for the unemployment rate, while continuing claims are closer to coincident, but carry more signal. When we compare continuing claims (right scale) with the unemployment rate through August (left scale), it suggests that in tomorrow’s report the unemployment rate is likely to be 4.2% or 4.3%:
This would be in line with the top range of the unemployment rate this year so far.
Tomorrow will be a busy day, as in addition to the delayed jobs report, we are likely to get the first timely updated jobless claims report (possibly with more back details) as well as existing home sales from the NAR.
