- by New Deal democrat
This week’s look at initial jobless claims includes seasonal revisions made to the data for the last five years. Fortunately, they appear to be very minor. So let’s take our typical look.
On a weekly basis, initial claims declined -1,000 to 224,000, and the four week moving average declined -4,750 to 224,000. Continuing claims, with the typical one week delay, declined -25,000 to 1.856 million:
As usual, the YoY% change is more important for forecasting purposes. So measured, initial claims increased 4.7%, and the four week moving average was up 5.2%. Continuing claims were also up 3.0%:
This is the trend we have seen since late last summer, with claims higher YoY, but not by enough to suggest and economic downturn, only some weakness.
Finally, anticipating next week’s jobs report, here is our weekly look at the YoY% change in initial, and initial plus continuing claims, averaged monthly, vs. the unemployment rate:
The YoY% increase in jobless claims suggests about a 5% increase in the unemployment rate. Since this is a percent of a percent measurement, the math is 3.8% * 1.05 = ~4.1%, which is exactly the unemployment rate last month. In other words, jobless claims are suggesting no upward or downward pressure on unemployment in the next few months.
