Weekly Jobless Claims Post Huge Gain, Back to Normalized Reporting
The Labor Department has released its weekly jobless claims and this week is a normalized number compared to last week’s huge artificial drop due to one large state not having their numbers recorded to reflect the quarter-end. The weekly claims…
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Dow Jones and Bloomberg both had a consensus estimate of 365,000 in weekly claims, and the range of estimates we saw was 360,000 to 385,000 for the week. Again, the huge drop last week and the huge pop this week are really skewed because the prior week was not counting a large state’s report, according to the Labor Department and according to most major media outlets at this time a week ago.
The four-week average rose by 750 to 365,500. The army of unemployed measured by the continuing claims (with a one week lag) fell by 29,000 to 3,252,000. With a one-week lag, we would note that those continuing claims may also have been skewed by that large state not having its data recognized.
If you just skip last week and do a straight line, then the change would have been from the report two weeks ago at 369,000. If that is the case then jobless claims are still on the rise. That contentious number of 7.8% unemployment is still up for debate.
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.