The U.S. Labor Department just released the weekly jobless claims and the reading fell by 42,000 down to 415,000.  The week’s reading from a week ago was revised to 457,000 from 454,000.  Dow Jones had estimates of roughly 423,000.

The four-week average hardly budged to 430,500.  The army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims fell by 84,000 to 3,925,000 as of two weeks ago.

In a separate release for the fourth quarter of 2010, the Nonfarm productivity rose by 2.6% versus 2.0% expected.  Unit labor costs, the measure of wage inflation, is non-existent as the rate fell by -0.6% versus expectations for a flat reading.  The Q4 figures compared to Q3 revised figures of 2.3% in productivity and -0.1% in the unit labor costs.

Another week with a drop, but nothing anywhere close enough to move the needle on the super-high unemployment rate yet.

JON C. OGG