[Note: Yesterday was a travel day, and I didn’t get around to posting the regional Fed services survey averages for December. I’ll try to get to that later today.] The last weekly jobless report continues the trend of an improved picture – as in, very few people are getting laid off – that has typified […]

Jobless claims still rocked by seasonality; native born unemployment rate of under 4% forecast  – by New Deal democrat Due to today’ official Day of Mourning for the late President Jimmy Carter, initial and continuing claims were released yesterday, but since I didn’t cover it then, let’s catch up now on the normal day. It […]

– by New Deal democrat If residual post-pandemic seasonality has been affecting jobless claims statistics, the real acid test is going to begin next week, as for the next 7+ months, any number higher than 220,000 is almost always going to be higher than one year ago. In the meantime, for this our last week of […]

 – by New Deal democrat After several months of snoozing at almost identical weekly levels, initial jobless claims awoke with a bit of a jolt this week, increasing by 22,000 to 231,000, the highest weekly number since last August. The four week average unsurprisingly also rose, by 4,750, to 215,000. With the usual one week […]

Despite 6+ month low in initial claims, yellow caution flag remains  – by New Deal democrat Last week the initial claims numbers justified restarting the yellow caution flag. This week initial jobless claims declined -13,000 to a 6+ month low of 216,000. The 4-week moving average declined -8,500 to 229,250. With a one-week lag, continuing claims […]

Four week average of initial claims drops below “yellow flag” level, for now  – by New Deal democrat While GDP will get the lion’s share of attention today (and I’ll post on it later on), by and large it is a look in the rear view mirror. The more forward-looking data is weekly jobless claims. This […]