More good news came out of the U.S. Department of Labor in the latest weekly jobless claims report. Claims on a seasonally adjusted basis were 276,000 in the week ending November 7, unchanged from the previous week’s unrevised level. This is great news on the surface, but somehow the consensus estimate from Bloomberg was down at 266,000.
Thursday’s report did note that, as usual, no special factors had an impact on this week’s initial claims.
A four-week average is calculated to smooth over weekly volatility. This figure was up 5,000 to 267,750, versus the prior week’s unrevised four-week average of 262,750.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.6%, unchanged from the previous week’s unrevised rate.
One key figure that 24/7 Wall St. pays attention to is the so-called continuing claims. This represents the army of the unemployed. For the week ending October 31, continuing claims rose by 5,000 to 2,174,000. The prior week’s level was revised by 6,000 higher to 2,169,000.
Lastly, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs was 1,925,834, up by some 13,565 from the prior week. There were 2,101,931 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2014.
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