Will Weekly Jobless Claims Disappoint or Please the Market?

The U.S. Labor Department is set to report weekly jobless claims on Thursday morning. What is interesting about the trends of late is that weaker economic readings are prevailing, but not in jobs data. Last week’s report of the prior week was set at 287,000 before revisions. The consensus estimate for this week is represented as 290,000 by both Bloomberg and by Dow Jones.

What is taking place is that the market is worried about a slowing Europe and China, and that has to start weighing on fears that perhaps all the gains in the labor market could be at risk. The trends have been under 300,000 in weekly jobless claims, and any reading that is under 300,000 will likely be acceptable to market participants.

Last week’s report on the four-week average was down 7,250 to a new recovery low of 287,750.

Continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag and make up part of the army of unemployed. Last week’s report was down by 21,000 to 2.381 million, also a recovery low.

With this report being on layoffs, it will be interesting to see if companies are playing the opposite side or same side of the fence as other economic readings.

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