- by New Deal democrat
I will put up my detailed summary of the economically weighted ISM reports for this month a little later today, but first let’s take our regular weekly look at jobless claims.
Initial claims fell to a near historic low of 189,000 last week (only the week of July 18 was equal). The four week moving average declilned -2,250 to 194,750, a historic low not seen since 1969 - over 55 years ago. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims rose 23,000 to 1.718 million:
On the YoY% basis more important for forecasting purposes, initial claims were down -17.1%, the four week average was down -13.6%, and continuing claims were down -12.4%:
This continues the trend all year long of better and better positive news for the economy in general and the labor market in particular for the next few months.
Finally, let’s take our last look before tomorrow’s jobs report at the leading/lagging relationship between jobless claims and the unemployment rate:
I do not see how the unemployment rate fails to improve over the next few months, to a sub-4% reading. The last time there were these low jobless claims numbers, unemployment was in the 3.6%-3.8% range. We’ll obviously get our next look tomorrow!
