- by New Deal democrat
It took a little while for FRED to post this data today, but with that reason for a delay . . .
Initial jobless claims started off 2023 where they left off in 2022, with another good print. Initial claims declined -1,000 to 205,000, while the more important 4 week average declined -1,750 to 212,500. Continuing claims also declined, down -63,000 to 1.634 million:
Let me just add a small caution that we are in the time when Holiday season adds the most distortions even to seasonally adjusted data.
For purposes of recession watching, we want to know if claims are higher YoY, the first sign of weakness. And the answer is, they are not:
Initial jobless claims at this point are the last man standing among positive, or at least neutral, significant short leading indicators. And so they remain.
