Economy

Weekly Jobless Claims Lend Further Support for Strong Jobs Market

Jon C. Ogg

Published: April 28, 2016 11:35 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 10:09 am

On a morning where investors got their first formal reading for the first quarter’s gross domestic product, maybe the reading for weekly jobless claims from the U.S. Department of Labor might take a backseat as far as the news impact. Ditto when considering that the Bank of Japan did not deliver more on the negative interest rates and easy money gravy train, sending the global equity markets lower.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that weekly jobless claims came in at 257,000 for the week of April 23. Bloomberg had a consensus estimate of 260,000 and its Econoday range was listed as 240,000 to 264,000. Dow Jones had the consensus estimate at 257,000.

As usual, the BLS said that no special factors had an impact on Thursday’s report on weekly jobless claims.

Again, the report might be minimized by other more important economic readings. It was also too much in line with expectations to make any attempt to move the needle.

Last week’s release was revised to 248,000, up 1,000 from the 247,000 reported on a preliminary basis.

The BLS showed that the four-week average was down to 256,000 from 260,500 first reported a week ago. This is not just low, but it appears to be the lowest reading in about 42 years.

Continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag. We call this the army of the unemployed, and this contracted further by 5,000 to 2.130 million. This is the lowest reading in the past 16 years.

Investors should consider that the week of April 16 was the so-called sample week for the April, which may lend to stronger trends in the payrolls and unemployment report as a whole next week for the month of April.