Thursday, January 19, 2023

Jobless claims continue their string of good news

 

 - by New Deal democrat


If yesterday’s economic data was bad, this morning’s was considerably better (I’ll post on housing construction later).


Initial jobless claims declined 15,000 to 195,000, tied for their best number in almost 8 months. The 4 week moving average declined 6,500 to 206,000, the best number in over 6 months. Continuing claims, one week earlier, did increase by 17,000 to 1.647 million, still lower than their December readings:



These continue to be just excellent numbers.

Further, both initial claims and their 4 week average improved, and are lower YoY, although continuing claims are just slightly higher:



Unless and until the 4 week average of initial claims is higher by 10%+ YoY and stays there, there is no recession signal.

This is very good news.