Drop in Weekly Jobless Claims

It is another Thursday morning, so with the exception of Thanksgiving and when Christmas or New Years land on Thursday, it is time for another round of weekly jobless claims. The U.S. Labor Department announced that weekly jobless claims fell to 264,000 in the last week.

Bloomberg had the consensus estimate pegged at 275,000. Last week’s preliminary reading of 275,000 was left unchanged. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) further said that no special factors had an impact of this week’s initial claims, although we would point out that last Monday was Labor Day and that created a shortened week.

The four-week moving average fell by 3,250 to 272,500. Continuing claims, those claiming benefits for more than a week, fell by 26,000 to 2.237 million — although that report comes with a one-week lag.

The BLS also reported that the unemployment rate for insured workers held steady at 1.7%. Another view is the seasonally unadjusted claims, which does not take the calendar and traditional impacts into account. On this, the Labor Department said:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 198,597 in the week ending September 12, a decrease of 33,910 (or -14.6 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 25,314 (or -10.9 percent) from the previous week. There were 242,318 initial claims in the comparable week in 2014.

This is one of the last reports that the Federal Reserve gets to see before making its decision on interest rates. That being said, this report is unlikely to sway the Fed on whatever decision it will make.

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