Weekly Jobless Claims Hit Lowest Level Back to 1973

The U.S. Department of Labor has delivered another round of weekly jobless claims, and the numbers were much better than expected. Claims in the week ending April 16 were only 247,000.

This is not just better than expected, it is a cycle low dating back to 1973. Another standout feature here is that this marked the 59th consecutive week in which the Labor Department’s initial claims were below 300,000, the longest streak since 1973.

Bloomberg was calling for 265,00 and Dow Jones (WSJ) was calling for 264,000. The prior week, ending on April 9, was left unrevised at 253,000.

Another issue here is that this may help to bolster the coming unemployment and payrolls report due in two weeks. The Labor Department said 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 April 9. According to the Labor Department, that was unchanged from the previous week’s unrevised rate.

24/7 Wall St. usually likes to focus on the continuing jobless claims. This is reported with a one-week lag, but it is what we consider the army of the unemployed. For the week ending April 9, continuing claims were down some 39,000 to 2.137 million. This actually marked the lowest level for insured unemployment since November 4, 2000, when it was 2,110,000.

Weekly claims have been supportive of a strong jobs market for so long that each week’s report is now rarely moving the market. If ADP’s report from Thursday was correct, there is not just a strong number of jobs, but workers are getting serious pay raises to boot.