Jobless claims break on through – 1M+ jobs report for April looks likely
Jobless claims break on through – 1M+ jobs report for April looks likely
As I have said for the past few weeks, new jobless claims are likely to the most important weekly economic data for the next 3 to 6 months. With the number of those vaccinated continuing to increase, I have been expecting a big increase in renewed consumer and social activities, with a concomitant gain in monthly employment gains – as we saw in the March jobs report.Four weeks ago I set a few objective targets: new claims to be under 500,000 by Memorial Day, and below 400,000 by Labor Day.
This week was a major advance towards those targets.
On a unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 152,833 to 612,919. Seasonally adjusted claims declined by 193,000 to 576,000 (with last week’s number being adjusted upward by 25,000). The 4 week average of claims also declined by 42,250 to 683,000.
Here is the close up since last August (recall that these numbers were in the range of 5 to 7 million at their worst in April of last year):