The last official economic reading before Christmas has been delivered, with the U.S. Department of Labor showing that weekly jobless claims fell to 267,000 in the prior week. Bloomberg and Dow Jones were both calling for the reading to come in at 270,000.
Last week’s preliminary report was revised to 272,000 from 271,000. All in all, this is in line with the four-week average of 272,500 — an increase of 1,750 from the previous week’s revised average.
As usual, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) release indicated that no special factors had an impact on this week’s initial claims.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.6% for the week ending December 12. This was down by 0.1 percentage point from the previous week’s unrevised rate.
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The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment is actually the continuing jobless claims. This is reported with a one-week delay (for the week ending December 12) and is what we refer to as the army of the unemployed. Continuing claims were down by 47,000 to a level of 2,195,000. The previous week’s level was revised up 4,000 to 2,242,000 and the four-week moving average was 2,211,000.
Thursday’s reading is too much in line with expectations and with prior readings to create much of a stir in the financial markets. This is also a shortened trading session due to the Christmas Eve early close at 1:00 p.m. Eastern.
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