The Labor Department is out with its first weekly jobless claims report in 2013, and this is the last look from the government data ahead of Friday’s key unemployment report. With seasonal issues due to Christmas and New Years, we would likely discard most of the figure if they are not way out of line with expectations.

Claims rose by 10,000 to 372,000 in the last week. Bloomberg was calling for a consensus of 363,000, and Dow Jones was also calling for 363,000. The report from a week ago was also revised higher to 362,000 from 350,000, and that makes that much lower number a week ago look less surprising on the good news front than what we originally saw.

Today’s news is more economic news that is not in the right direction. It is also perhaps skewed data due to the holidays, when companies are delaying or expediting their pink slip notices.

Friday brings the “real” unemployment report from the Labor Department. Bloomberg has the consensus as 155,000 nonfarm payroll additions and an unemployment rate of 7.8% as the consensus estimates. The report a month ago was 7.7% unemployment and 146,000 in nonfarm payroll additions.

JON C. OGG

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