Thursday’s economic data gave us the last bit of what to expect for the formal employment situation report on Friday. The U.S. Department of Labor released its weekly jobless claims as being 270,000 in the prior week. This was close to the Bloomberg consensus estimate of 273,000 and only 3,000 higher than the unrevised 267,000 claims that were reported a week ago.
The four-week average fell by 6,500 to 268,250, and that is the third weekly decline.
Continuing claims, which is what we call the army of the unemployed, was down by 14,000 to 2.255 million. That is reported with a one-week lag, and it continues to drift lower and lower.
While the numbers have been mixed elsewhere, there seems to be no real impetus for a change to the unemployment report’s expectations for Friday. Bloomberg’s consensus estimates from the Labor Department’s unemployment report for July this Friday are as follows:
- Unemployment flat at 5.3%
- Nonfarm payrolls of 212,000 for July, down from 223,000 in June
- Private sector payrolls of 210,000, versus 223,000 from June
- Average hourly earnings at 0.2%, versus 0.0% in June
- Average workweek flat at 34.5 hours
While the July layoffs from Challenger Gray & Christmas were at a four-year high, investors and economists know that those were announced layoffs and they actually will trickle into the jobless claims over the coming months rather than all at once.
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