Jobless Claims Revision Skews Report Ahead of Unemployment
The Labor Department’s report on weekly jobless claims is out and the report showed a drop of 5,000 to 359,000 for the prior week. Bloomberg had estimates of 350,000 and Dow Jones was calling for a gain of 2,000. One…
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One problem is that the previous week was revised to 364,000 from 348,000 and that means that breaking the 350,000 barrier was a mirage rather than an accomplishment. This is said to be due to adjustments that go back years now.
These numbers are still far better (or far less-bad) than they had been in prior months. Still, these alone are not enough to truly fix a weak labor market despite the drop in the official unemployment rate.
Another consideration is the army of unemployed measured with a one-week lag in the continuing jobless claims. This figure fell by 41,000 to 3,340,000 in today’s report.
All in all, this is a net neutral reading because it is not far enough ahead of or under estimates to make a huge impact. We will get one more look next week at weekly claims before next Friday’s unemployment reading and data on non-farm payrolls.
JON C. OGG
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Jon Ogg has been a financial news analyst since 1997. Mr. Ogg set up one of the first audio squawk box services for traders called TTN, which he sold in 2003. He has previously worked as a licensed broker to some of the top U.S. and E.U. financial institutions, managed capital, and has raised private capital at the seed and venture stage. He has lived in Copenhagen, Denmark, as well as New York and Chicago, and he now lives in Houston, Texas. Jon received a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance at University of Houston in 1992. www.247wallst.com.