- by New Deal democrat
Our last bit of news before Christmas continued the positive news, as initial jobless claims declined back to 214,000, while the four week average also declined to 216,750. The last three weeks collectively have had the lowest seasonally adjusted numbers since January. Meanwhile, continuing claims rose back above 1.9 million to 1.923 million.
As is usual, for forecasting purposes the YoY% changes are more important. Here, initial claims were -2.3% lower than one year ago, the four week average down -4.2%, and continuing claims higher by 2.2%:
Although per the recent QCEW update through Q2 as well as the recent nonfarm payrolls reports show that on net almost no hiring is happening, jobless claims tell us there is very little firing as well. This is a positive report.
