The U.S. Labor Department has issued its weekly jobless claims, and we saw another drop in claims. Unfortunately, that decline was only by 2,000, down to 312,000. The prior week was also revised from 312,000 to 314,000. That makes the drop seem more like a flat report. Bloomberg had the consensus estimate at 310,000.
The four-week average came in at 314,250, which has become stuck in a very tight range over the past month or so now.
Continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag, and this is what we call the army of the unemployed. This reading had been in decline in previous weeks, but rose by 12,000 in the week of June 14 to 2.571 million.
This weekly jobless claims reading likely is not enough to send markets in either direction. It simply represents decent news on the jobs front and is not likely to create any sway or bias change inside the Federal Reserve on when to hike rates.
ALSO READ: The Best (and Worst) States to Be Unemployed
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