Unemployment: New Claims Drop to 457k.
This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report has been released. Initial claims dropped to 457,000. Last week’s number was revised down 4,000 to 462k. This was better than the Bloomberg consensus range of 471k to 495k. From the report:
In the week ending Nov. 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 457,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 462,000. The 4-week moving average was 481,250, a decrease of 14,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 495,500.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.1 percent for the week ending Nov. 21, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 4.1 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Nov. 21 was 5,465,000, an increase of 28,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,437,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,541,500, a decrease of 75,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,617,250.
The trend in the new claims number has been re-established. We have a considerable buffer below the 500k mark. This is good news. What’s more, the unadjusted numbers moved in the same direction:
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 460,989 in the week ending Nov. 28, a decrease of 78,263 from the previous week. There were 535,730 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.
The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6 percent during the week ending Nov. 21, a decrease of 0.3 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,787,291, a decrease of 296,052 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.7 percent and the volume was 3,652,990.
It’s nice to see the unadjusted number sit so close to the adjusted number. What is more important, though, is the improvement in the number of new claims from last year. The jobs environment is certainly more stable this time around the sun.
The good / bad list provides us a painful reminder of what can happen the week after a shortened work-week. These lists refer to the week after Veterans Day.
The good list (-1000 or more): MI
The bad list (+1000 or more): CO, MA, TN, GA, KS, OH, NY, SC, AL, VA, WI, KY, AR, FL, TX, PA, NC, IL, CA
CA (the worst) was +14,796 vs MI (the best) at -1,242. California gave some blame to Veterans Day (back to five days of layoffs). Construction and manufacturing were the best represented justification for the increases, with services coming in ahead of trade.
There have been more rumors of fixing the unemployment extension so that it continues past the new year, but this AP story was the only thing I saw with any useful information. A COBRA benefits extension is also mentioned. My level of hope on the issue continues to decline. I hope that those collecting their extended benefits can survive a gap.
Remember that tomorrow is the release of the monthly Employment Situation report. That will give us the official unemployment rate and the number of jobs lost in the economy. The ADP National Employment Report (pdf), which does not include government jobs, came in at -169,000 jobs. That number would be worse than what is expected tomorrow. There was a brief scare today when a wire service reported that Whitehouse spokesperson Robert Gibbs made a statement about an unexpected tick up in the unemployment rate. Gibbs followed by denying the claim, suggesting that he was referring to the ADP report. A statement about a pending report would be unusual, but the follow-up was appreciated by the markets.
Bottom line: This was another good report, but there’s still a long way to go.
-By crazynutjob.
Read all of crazynutjob’s unemployment report recaps here.
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the405club reblogged this from crazynutjob and added:
-By crazynutjob. Read all of crazynutjob’s unemployment report recaps here.
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