The Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released this morning, showing a slight increase in initial jobless claims to 558,000. Continuing claims came in at 6.2 million, down from 6.3 million the week before.  All of these figures are seasonally-adjusted.
On an unadjusted basis, claims were below 500K for the second week running.  In looking at [...]

The US Department of Labor released the employment last data point before tomorrow’s widely anticipated unemployment number comes out. The data showed jobless claims declining to 550,000 from 588,000 on a seasonally-adjusted basis. This puts the 4-week average at 555,250, the lowest average number since January. Meanwhile seasonally-adjusted continuing claims ticked up a notch to [...]

The US Department of Labor released data showing that 584,000 people filed initial claims for unemployment insurance this past week.  This is up sharply from the upwardly revised 559,000 last week and 524,000 two weeks ago.  The past two weeks’ data were artificially low due to shifts in auto plant production schedules. Now, the data [...]

When last week’s US jobless claims number was released, I indicated it was artificially low because of changes in the summer auto production schedules.  Rather than look at the numbers as they are released from week to week, we should look at the 4-week moving average and its comparison to previous periods to gauge the [...]

On the surface this week’s jobless claims data look very good. Initial claims came in at 522,000, the best since the first week of the year and pulling the 4-week average below 600,000 for the first time in about six months.  Moreover, there was a huge dip in continuing claims to 6.27 million, down from [...]

The latest figures on claims for unemployment insurance in the United States were released this morning.  The data showed Initial claims of 565,000, putting the figure under 600,000 for the first time since January.  But, continuing claims rose to a record high of 6.88 million.  On the whole, this should be considered a very good [...]

The U.S. Department of Labor released the latest data for unemployment insurance as it does every Thursday at 830ET.  The seasonally adjusted numbers reported were 614,000 initial claims and 6.702 million continuing claims. While this report reinforced the trend of a general decline in jobless claims, it also makes plain that this decline is exceedingly [...]

Initial Jobless claims rose in the latest week to 627,000 from a revised 612,000.  Continuing claims also rose to 6,738,000, demonstrating that the job market in the U.S. remains weak. Now, back in April and May, I made a big to-do about the fact that most indications suggested that jobless claims were peaking.  In retrospect, [...]

The unemployment insurance weekly claims report revealed that the number of persons filing an initial claim rose 3,000 this past week to 608,000.  While these are still very high numbers, they are the lowest since January, suggesting that claims have peaked in this cycle. Nevertheless, jobless claims are not falling back nearly as quickly as [...]

The U.S. Labor Department came out with its latest weekly report.  The data were mixed because initial claims are pointing to recovery, but continuing claims continue to hit new records.  The long and short: the U.S. Labor market remains weak and will continue to be weak for the foreseeable future.
For the week ended June 6th, [...]